TRAVELING IN PLACE

by John Azrak






I pull down my mask, gaze out over the Sound
the coastline asleep, buoys bare, the distant kayak’s
shell a streak of yellow paint; fog eclipses
the Throgs Neck Bridge and John Prine is on a jelly roll—
has been since I left the house—loose-limbed and impish
feeding the pigeons some clay, walking off his blues slyly
taking down the disheveled girl in the White House,
Lady Liberty, she must be, caught in an embarrassing situation
but—oh yes, John—a situation just the same. What you knew.
I take a deep breath, pull up the mask, adjust the AirPods—
two miles down, three to go—happy to walk with James Taylor
to Mexico then Carolina in his mind as I head to the Point
where across the sound Gatsby’s East Egg absent
the green light, Dylan conjuring the sun, sand, spirit breezes
of Mozambique, the pretty girls (so many) left behind
before off he is to imaginary Black Diamond Bay, storm brewing
verse to swelling verse until a volcano erupts that sinks the island,
all souls lost when I reach the inlet’s park, its empty picnic tables,
trash-bagged b-ball hoops, hooded like criminals on crosses,
deserted monkey bars: Misery loves company but not these days.
I forego my half-way bench (germs? really? maybe? fuck it)
under the curved spine of a dogwood I lean against, scroll through
the sleek Fitbit watch— number of steps, miles, calories burned,
numbers for the heart senseless, embarrassingly so, with nearly 100,000
Americans dead on trump’s watch—and I need to run, Sonny Rollins
blowing a heart thumping storm of his own, tribute to St. Thomas,
the no doubt about it Virgin Island, ancestral home of the young
saxophone colossus, upbeat Sonny, pulsating New York City Sonny,
now ninety Sonny still playing, plague be damned, what hasn’t he
faced up to? I think, climb the Vanlose Stairway in Copenhagen
with Van Morrison’s soul rollicking live in Montreux band
before the quick transfer to his Trans-Euro train—
Kilroy was here Kilroy was here Kilroy was here
flashing on walls hard driving Van picking up my pace
as I hop the Marrakesh Express, CSN”s sweet harmonies
broken by Dylan’s edgy longing (she might be in Tangiers)
the Slow Train Coming slowing me to a jog on the final bend,
John Prine coming back around, missing him as my heart races—
Hello in There, John, Hello

John Azrak lives in New York and has published fiction and poetry in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies.

SONG FOR PATTI

by John Azrak

Patti Smith’s books, particularly Just Kids and M Train, reflect the same humanitarian, progressive, genuine spirit found in her eclectic music, a catalogue that spans over fifty years. Patti has been nominated this week for the New Academy’s alternative to the suspended Nobel Prize in Literature for those “who have told the story of humans in the world.” Photo: Patti Smith performs at Glastonbury in 2015. Credit: Dylan Martinez/Reuters via The Guardian.

In the early days of rock ‘n roll
when licensing was free
Patti Smith crossed her poem “Oath”
with Van Morrison’s garage rocker “Gloria”
on her album Horses turning her disavowal
of her family’s Jehovah’s Witnesses
into a punk anthem
with a scorching opening refrain
Jesus died for somebody’s sins
But not mine—

Just a kid when she turned her back
on religion (critics clamored atheist)
living with Robert Mapplethorpe,
avant-garde photographer and lover
who broke her heart when he came out
of the closet in her wiry arms,
nearly shattering her self-esteem—
a woman was expected still
to convert her man; and hadn’t Patti
read that Rimbaud regretted never finding
the perfect woman! –-but she remained
ever faithful to their soulful bond,
returning to NYC (though newly married)
to nurse Robert, stricken with AIDS,
holding him in her arms unafraid
when there was everything to fear
Jesus died for somebody’s sins
But not mine—

She married guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith,
band mate and muse, not on the rebound
but so she didn’t have to change her name,
she joked, choosing a life of relative seclusion
in his native Detroit where they worked
on their own music and in tandem
raised two children, performed locally
until she returned thirteen years later
to a jam packed Central Park SummerStage
to read from The Coral Reef, her mystical
prose poems about Robert, a tribute
to his art four years after his passing,
with the support and musical backing
of her self-made, selfless husband
Jesus died for somebody’s sins
But not mine—

Fred died suddenly of heart failure
the following year and then shockingly,
not six months later, her beloved brother
(and road manager) Todd’s heart gave out
but somehow Patti’s remained strong,
dedicated as she was to her children,
Jackson and Jesse, holding them together
with an unbroken faith in love and music
and the gift of life she kept in motion;
in the wake of her unthinkable losses,
Bob Dylan, old friend from their Village days,
asked her to join him on the road—
a short stint to decompress, exercising
her voice until “magnified,” she later wrote,
by the loved ones she’d lost
Jesus died for somebody’s sins
But not mine—

Patti and Dylan sang his “Dark Eyes,”
their first duet reprised on occasion
over the twenty years she regained her voice
as a prime mover of humanitarian causes
on the international stage; so no surprise
when Dylan asked her to stand in for him
at the Nobel Laureate’s ceremony
where she sang “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”
(her selection) winning over the strait-laced
audience with a poignant interpretation
and pregnant pause over a lost lyric—
the moment of silence capturing it seemed
her dear ones missing— the rising applause
befitting a woman who was a minder
of her fellow man, and as fate would have it,
soon after bound for Kentucky to care for
and work alone with Sam Shepard,
the signature playwright of her generation,
Pulitzer Prize winner of Buried Child, Off-
Broadway icon, poet, songwriter, musician
chronicler of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review,
virile screen actor and Patti’s former lover
who remained her friend for fifty years
now suffering the crippling and devastating
symptoms of Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS)
robbed of the ability to write in his preferred
longhand or type drafts of his final novel;
Patti visited Sam’s ranch faithfully
to help transcribe his recordings,
to work out scenes and revisions orally
to help guide the novel to completion
never letting Sam believe, she responded
in a recent interview, that they were working
as if there were no tomorrow
Jesus died for somebody’s sins
But not mine— 

John Azrak lives in New York and has published fiction and poetry in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies. 

TOO MUCH OF NOTHING

by John Azrak

On this day in literary history

Bob Dylan did not show to pick up

his Nobel prize in literature 

Maybe the laureate’s in the kitchen
with the Tombstone Blues
High Water everywhere
or he’s found TS Eliot and Ezra Pound
at Odds and Ends on Desolation Row;
maybe meeting his pal Sam Shepard
in East Texas to sing Brownsville Girl
or dancing with Shakespeare in the alley
in his pointed shoes and bells
Stuck Inside of Mobile
with the Memphis Blues Again
waiting to find out what price
he has to pay to get out of going
through all these things twice:
the degree from Princeton University
honorary but the Song of the Locusts
off stage left him pining to be free

Or he’s busy looking for his Lo and Behold
no longer wed to Isis, the mythical child,
who breaks Just Like a Woman
among the missing Absolutely Sweet Marie,
the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,
Sally, Sara, Little Sadie, Saro, Ramona too
in a Series of Dreams, Saint Augustine;
if nothing else, these Visions of Johanna
have kept him up past the dawn
dog-tired A Million Miles from the ever
(it’s now or never more than ever)
he's forever chasing, Just Like Tom Thumb
too wasted for the Million Dollar Bash
drinking One More Cup of Coffee
for Too Much of Nothing:
he's got a million people at his feet
singing Under the Red Sky
What   Good   Am   I?
and all he sees are Dark Eyes

Maybe he’s visiting with Baby Blue
who’s changed his last name too
where he’ll strike a match and start anew
with Queen Jane whose mother
has sent back all of her invitations
until Nothing Was Delivered;
or off to see Judas Priest and Frankie Lee
who won’t go mistaking Paradise
for that home across the road;
he could be Watching the River Flow
Spirit on the Water, Heart in the Highlands
listening to Johnny Cash, reading James Joyce;
or he Went to See the Gypsy
searching for a New Blue Moon
the sun rising in that little Minnesota town
where the Foot of Pride leaves no prints
Love Minus Zero has no limit
and My Back Pages reveals:
I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Forever Young at seventy-five
Dylan Ain’t Talkin’ just walkin’
through this weary world of woe
passing on his Nobel speech this day
but put some bleachers out in the sun
and maybe he'll deliver it on Highway 61
where a thousand telephones don’t ring
and Dignity can’t be photographed;
Ring Them Bells but not for him unless
they’re Chimes of Freedom flashing
for Stockholm, Sweden holds no key
to truths outside the Gates of Eden,
and if the committee has been left
Standing in the Doorway, crying
with blues wrapped around its head,
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
(Sooner or Later) One of Us Must Know
that he really did try to get close to you:
hey, If Dogs Run Free, why not he
or we all One Too Many Mornings
and a thousand miles behind
Tryin’ to Get to Heaven
before they close the door.

John Azrak, a native New Yorker, has published widely in literary journals. He thought Dylan's excuse, "pre-existing commitments," for not attending the awards ceremony was pretty funny and more like "conditions," uninsurable and the inspiration for this poem. Azrak highly recommends Todd Haynes's aptly titled Dylan movie I'm Not There.

DECEMBER 8

by John Azrak

On this day in history
Raymond Carver came to town
a hulking man with sapphire blue eyes
drinker's nose and a tipsy finger-
tip handshake with time to kill
before his reading at Columbia University;
He shared cocaine at the apartment
of a young writer, Jay, who idolized Ray's
piercing minimalist fiction, his own life
a bent out of shape Carver character,
having recently lost his mother,
wife to divorce, any notion of self-discipline,
his fact-checking job at The New Yorker.
Ray, of course, knew from dissipation
and suggested that the young writer
might want to flee the dangers and distractions
of the big city to work on his craft far upstate.
On the train uptown Jay worried the idea
as if he had a writer's stake in the heart
of the publishing world, worried it more so
in the room where the soon to be huge
Ray Carver read “Put Yourself in My Shoes”
to a small but ecstatic audience
while not fifty blocks away Mark Chapman
hid in an alcove at the stately Dakota.


John Azrak has published widely in literary magazines and anthologies; his most recent poems, in Nimrod and Stoneboat, deal with the war in Syria. He is an admirer of the work of Raymond Carver and John Lennon.