Here’s a poem from the Rhine River trip that Rosemary and I enjoyed in late summer 2019. The poem appears on RichardHowe.com today as part of Germany Week on the Howe publication. In three days, October 9, John Lennon would have made it to 80 years old. Around the world people are offering thoughts of peace. Coincidentally, John’s mentioned here.—PM
German Easy Rider
On the ship TV with Rhine River black outside closed drapes
Film scenes shine like colored LIFE magazine hippie news
From 1969 reporters following a tie-dyed trail and grass scent
To communes like the desert crib which Peter Fonda studies
As closely as a Margaret Mead-detective, but in his back yard
Not the South Seas, the natives this time with blond hair, and
He’s curious about the sex part of the cave arrangement—
His hopped-up Hopper sideman leering and lapping it up,
Twirling in Davy Crockett buckskins, fringe doing a little dance
For the women of the house. We don’t see Jack N. in this bit,
Being featured tonight as a link to Fonda’s recent death,
Fifty years to the movie’s summer and moon-men landing,
Just in time for Woodstock tales (the anniversary concert
Plug pulled last minute), same theme now in the Museum
Of Amsterdam, a media piece bragging on the loose vibe
Peaking when San Francisco and Amsterdam were twin capitals
Of Freak World, the Netherlands famously drawing the famous
Two Virgins for a Hilton Hotel bed-in ad for peace, same Fonda
Who told John (you know) at an L.A. party that he, Peter, knew
What it’s like to be dead, which we later heard about on Revolver,
That party just before hyper-alert Joan Didion sensed the
American Center was not holding, although she may have been
Melodramatic given what we know fifty years later—that the music
Really had a hold on us and hasn’t let go, the music beat time and
Has been the glue, witness Zap Records in downtown A-dam
With its fat bin of Beatles vinyl, first on the left when you enter,
A fact to like in the German night cruising the Rhine towards
Dusseldorf and watching Easy Rider dubbed and without
English subtitles, which doesn’t matter—just look at the picture,
Wait for the sticky music and bloody ending, no translation needed—
No director’s-cut resurrection for Wyatt and Billy in the re-run.