The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
Sam Shepard's Revenge
by Larry L. Dill
He that has and a little tiny wit,
With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it rainith every day.
-- sung by the Fool in King Lear
September 8. first day in London. Clear skies, sea breezes.
A sea of ravens in the park.
And the children at the school next door are laughing.
I begin to make lists.
The fastidiously dressed drunken beggar on Fulhum Road.
The kindness of strangers all over town.
The school children screaming at recess.
Their uniformed sweetness on display as they play in the park across the street.
My daughter applying for admission to the London School of Economics.
Hard to find cornbread mix.
Hard to figure pounds to dollars in your head.
Beautiful girls on the street.
The apartment itself is nearly opulent.
I look out the window at a pretty blonde walking a sweet black dog
In Wandsworth Park.
A plump young mother pushes a pram
Discreetly hiding hips in long flowing skirts.
This gout is like a hobble.
The cane a badge of disability.
Kind women offering me their seats on the train.
Because of the cane.
All kinds of public transportation.
And black people with British accents.
Black people with French accents.
Medals of distinction they deserve to wear
But cannot in America.
Scottish hospitality.
I tell a girl in Ireland a story about on old Navajo indian.
She hugs me so hard we spill the beer.
Conversations about introspection.
I bought a book in Charing Cross by R.D. Lang.
What are the boundaries, he asks, between fathers and sons?
And what binds them?
And what, I ask, of sons in laws?
I walk along the Thames.
I find a memorial to a man who had parked a houseboat there
that sank in 1991.
Where ever you go there you are.
How do you let go of what you cannot control?
The bars are full of skinheads posing as citizens
Like Tom Delay.
Gay old men in Chelsea pubs still see me as youthful and interesting.
Lebanese restaurants with Turkish waiters dreaming of paradise.
Sullen drunks in business suits.
Suddenly I’m far from home.
I had some thoughts last night as I slipped away to sleep.
About my unconscious,
I dreamed about my brother.
I’d watched a few minutes on TV of the assassination of Jessie James.
My brother in the dream was fierce and violent
And protective like one of those characters Clint Eastwood plays.
I've been reading about a big red book that Carl Jung wrote
But never published
Finally now about to be released.
About the power of overcoming your demons by following them into Hell.
And then climbing back out.
September 21. Deb should be sleeping at home in Waynesville.
Camen and Veneet at work. I’m home alone.
Slept well but had night sweats.
Too much beer? Or too much fear.
Read Sam Shepard short story in the New Yorker.
“In the land of the living.”
Iwas thinking of writing a story called “Sam
Shepard’s Revenge.” I guess this is it.
September 25. Alone in a borrowed room in London at 3am. The streets are quiet.
Time to go to press. So much of me is beyond my own…
What shall I say?…geography.
-- Larry L.Dill
Putney Bridge Road
London, England
September, 2009
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copyright 2009 by Larry L. Dill