"On Sitting Down to Write I Decide Instead to Go to Fred Herko's Concert" by Diane Di Prima

ON SITTING DOWN TO WRITE
I DECIDE INSTEAD
TO GO TO FRED HERKO’S CONCERT


As water, silk,
the quiver of fish
or the long cry of goose
              or some such bird
              I never heard
your orange tie
a sock in the eye
              as Duncan
              might forcibly note
are you sitting under the irregular drums
of Brooklyn Joe Jones
(in a loft which I know to be dirty
& probably cold)
or have you scurried already
                        hurried already
uptown
on a Third Avenue Bus
toward smelly movies & crabs I’ll never get
and you all perfumed too
as if they’d notice



O the dark caves of obligation
into which I must creep
                        (alack)
like downstairs & into a coat
O all that wind
Even Lord & Taylor don’t quite keep out
that wind
and that petulant vacuum
I am aware of it
sucking me into Bond Street
into that loft
              dank
              rank
I draw a blank
at the very thought
                        Hello
I came here
              after all



Dec 1963


Source of the text - Diane Di Prima, Freddie Poems. Point Reyes: Eidolon Editions, 1974.


TJB: Beat elegy. With doggerel rhyme, archaisms, & ‘70s slang, the poem starts in haiku mode, & moves reluctantly to the streets toward the dance.