What Were You Smiling about?
A poem by Kathleen O’Brien

What Were You Smiling about?

Dear Allen,
You grin as you lean
on your crutches.
Are you catching your breath?
A moment of pause?
Where a late spring snowstorm
has laid us a soft, cool, playground?

Inside Leary is preaching
acid on a stage where Tom and Jerry,
and the Mothers of Invention,
will later piss each other off and break instruments.

And down the street, Molly, Marty’s wife, is rolling joints
and herself with Wavy Gravy
and the rest of the Farm
in the blue school bus.

But you, you are watching
Marty and I toss snow balls
and hormones

at each other.
Giggling
silly.

Not
a peep from the man
who made howling
a thing.

Just a small
grin.
This is what the revolution
is about, you imply.
Not the big crowd roaring
inside the gym
blue with
smoke
and dope scent.

All disappeared
in time.
But you
remain,
a monument
to broken rules
and literary 
freedom.
What
were you
thinking?
What
were you smiling
about?

– A letter to Allen Ginsburg. And yes, this happened.

Photo by Andrea Scher.

About the Author:

After years of pounding the keys defining and defending sustainable design and construction in the Northwest, Kathleen O’Brien (she/her) has returned to her first love as a young child, story. In this case, her own.

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