Author: Bobby Petersen
A poem by Bobby Petersen, written in 1973 after hearing of Pigpen's death.
Originally published in "Far Away Radios" and then included in Petersen's collected poems "Alleys Of The Heart".
weird how it goes
with beginnings
& endings
again
this year
winter's over
end of the loco months
new green
appearing everywhere
sweet lunacy
birds & blue skies
eternal snows
glutting the rivers
brown with earth
whales starting north
with precious
young
& pigpen died
my eyes
tequila-tortured
4 days mourning
lost another fragment
of my own self
knowing
the same brutal
night-sweats & hungers
he knew
the same cold fist
that knocked him down
now clutching furiously
at my gut
shut my eyes
& see him standing
spread-legged
on the stage of the world
the boys prodding him
egging him on
he telling all he ever knew
or cared to know
mike hand cocked like
a boxer's
head throwed back
stale whiskey blues
many-peopled desolations
neon rainy streets
& wilderness of airports
thousands maybe millions
loved him
were fired instantly
into forty-five minutes of
midnight hour
but when he died
he was thin, sick, scared
alone
like i said to laird
i just hope he didn't hurt
too much
weird
all these endings
& beginnings
pale voices of winter
faces, rivers, birds, songs
lunacies
i wonder
how many seasons
new green coming once more
to the land
fresh winds turn
bending the long grasses
we'll hear him sing
again