from the LP Horses, Arista Records, 1975I picked up a copy of Patti Smith’s memoirs (Just Kids) a couple weeks ago, and I have to say, it’s full of the most inspiring words I’ve read in a long fucking time people---if you have even the slightest twinge of artistic daydreams within your being, I implore you, go get this book! Patti is verbose without being the slightest bit self-indulgent, fearlessly honest, funny in her minimal way even, but most of all she carries on the tradition of storytellers from the past, weaving narratives that whisk the reader away to a time that seems so foreign against the backdrop of our computerized, TMZ-ridden, Walt bloody Disney modern world; to be completely honest, reading about her & Robert Maplethorpe’s triumphs and tribulations really brought home how distant the ‘60s are from now, and their stories could likely never happen today. SO, in honor of Ms. Smith’s willingness to open up and give us all a pinch of that wildfire, I will attempt to concoct one of her brand of poem / prose / song collages:
Death dancer dance on
in a glaze of swirling galaxies,
dripping like ornaments
from your Godiva gowns;
night-eyes, your cosmic strides
peel leather silhouettes
from my insides.
and I cry,
loneliness lacks a heartbeat,
wisdom stays in bed;
bind me with your reptile strings
let me drown inside your head…
