PHIL OCHS IN SPRING 2021

by David Chorlton

Photo credit: Phoenix Rescue Mission: “Last summer, record-breaking heat took the lives of 494 men and women in Arizona. As a community, we need to step up and reach out to those who may not know how deadly our summer can be.”

Wake up; check for rain; the daily high’s

a body count and rubbing the eyes

won’t move the images away

of yesterday’s encampment

winding around two downtown blocks

in plain sight of the sky.

It’s so hot all

I can do is to pour

this bottle of water over

my legs, and then

another, and

then another. It isn’t even news today

 

with nine semi-automatic victims

in California and

a gunman’s high-capacity rage

recalled by his ex-wife:

I'm going to beat him up, I'm going

to kill the son-of-a-gun;

Sometimes people say

things like that

when they're mad. The bedding is makeshift

on Eleventh Avenue, the clothing

T-shirt bright,

and blankets soften

the pavement in varying shades

of poverty. Sometimes a face

floats out from among

the collage of nylon and humanity:

remember it. Remember just

this one on behalf of them all. Remember

the song: And there but for fortune,

may go you

or go  I

 

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. A new book, Unmapped Worlds, featuring older poems that had suffered neglect, is out from FutureCycle Press. He recently took up watercoloring again, after twenty dry years.

TO PHIL OCHS

by Bill Dixon

on the 40th anniversary of the death of Phil Ochs

It's open mic night at The Sacred Mushroom.
   Phil Ochs tramps
onto the red stage,
and glares at me, some punk kid.

He has a Gibson acoustic guitar under his arm
   and confidence under
his battered leather coat.
He turns toward the crowd in folding metal chairs.

And a jittery 10th grade kid awaiting his turn next.
   That's me in the back row
Wishing that I'd sat closer
to the spotlighted red stage by then.

Walking's the hardest part, up to the stage.
   Then climbing on to it,
carrying my beat-up old Kay 6-string
clenched in my left hand, stepping unsteady steps.

Phil finishes his last protest song,
   with a flourish I still can't do,
and he nods unsmilingly
at the audience of old Beatniks.

They applaud and then pause, as I creep,
   onto the red stage
as slowly as a snail. It seems
the crowd's faces are as old as my father's.

I sing my three songs, sweating under the lights,
   in the January-cold coffee house.
I had done what I could do.
I nodded at the faces, and stepped off stage.

I was not Phil Ochs, but there was applause.
   I thanked the listeners.
I am now a Folk Singer,
and I am now a man. Thanks again, I said.

Author’s note: These events took place at the Sacred Mushroom Coffee House, in Columbus, Ohio in 1960.

Bill Dixon worked his way through the Ohio State University, got an M.A., taught school, did iron work, worked at the Columbus Zoo, tended bar, and worked his way into a CEO position at a Columbus bank. He has written two books, Disorderly Conduct (1960's at OSU) and Guitar Collecting. He writes a regular column "From The Edge" for ragazine.cc. Dixon lives in Florida and Maine.