Monday, 28 July, 2014. -( 21˚C / 70˚F @ 11:00 pm in our neck of the woods. )-
I think the following is actually the first poem that I’d written that Doug ever saw. (it was not quite all the way out of the typewriter when Doug stumbled onto it.) (I hardly ever left stuff lying around like that where just any weirdo (( who would have had to been let in, or broken in, or invited – in this case )) could happen to glance the wrong way and realize I wrote poetry now and then. Most of the guys I worked with in those days would have respected the hell out of a porn writer, but would have stepped a couple steps back and wondered how far they were from the nearest door if they know I wasn’t afraid to write poetry.)
“Grey-Hounded”Evening —————Jim Wellington (1970) |
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I had typed this on my old electric (suitcase model) portable typewriter. I don’t remember the make or model, but I do remember it was light blue in colour.
Both Doug and I were feeling dumped by our ‘significant others’ (but I had no idea at that time, that he’d been married and forgot something on his way to work, came home to get it and caught his wife ((Now ex-wife)) emptying their house and about to run off “with a van full of crazies from some whacko California Evangelic Christian Commune” with their daughter in tow. Doug, a security guard with a license to carry firearms, was in uniform with the gun on his hip and the crazies took off in a hurry. His wife ran out the back door and across a couple neighbours’ back yards and jumped in the van and left the baby in her car seat on the kitchen table.) So Doug’s suffering was a whole lot deeper and more profound than mine at the time. I hadn’t had a clue.
I also didn’t realize he’d read the piece of paper in the typewriter until a couple days later when he handed me one of his poems (and swore me to secrecy, the company he worked for might not trust a gun toting poet to guard their clients in those days ((1991-ish?)) )
—————Jim
