THE DEATH OF CARLOS CASTENEDA
At the window of the Kiev
surrounded by NYU film students
post-modern kids with ontological tattoos
rite-of-passage piercings
I spot ghosts on 2nd Avenue
Adam Purple
who peddled through the 60's
still on his bicycle (no longer in purple)
a new girlfriend in the wake
of his white beard
Eamon
the punk construction worker
lean arms swinging from a cut-off leather vest
has gone gray
embarrassed by
my age
I'm relieved to see Eric's
antique goatee
vibrate
when I tell him
Marie Louise Von Franz
is dead
Jung's mystical sister
who defined the Puer Aeternis
and synchronicity
with him in
the underworld...
Over apricot Danish
Eric recalls a moment when
recently departed Carlos Casteneda
visited the Marlboro Bookshop
to check on sales of his work
-More like Al D'Amato,
than Harrison Ford."
then laments a flood
in his apartment water damage
to his American Mercuries
especially now
that Mencken
is timely again
at the end
of the Late Pleistocene
when the extinction of most large mammals
finds
Boobus Americanus
alive and well
-Which doesn't explain what happened
to Lanford Wilson or Sam Shepherd
after their early successes
at Cafe Chino.
-Yes, he agrees. They seemed to fade
overnight unlike Arthur Miller who
(unlike Houghton Foote)
grows more elegant
with age.
-It can't be easy to outlive your audience, I observe,
watch them cease to exist. Miller
moved to England where
they revere him.
-Ever think of living in Europe?
-Sure, I admit,
but can't say what keeps me here
adrift in a culture driven by
accelerating speed of obsolescence
watching the worm
of indifference
hollow out
my heart
Paul Pines___