Hodgepodge 99/365 - Coffeehouse Poet

My friend Nina called yesterday morning and suggested we get together in the afternoon at a Pacific Grove coffeehouse to write. My response was, Write???????? It felt impossible—like I've forgotten how to: the political situation has me too upset to even have thoughts, never mind collect them, plus my crazy workload lately has me completely blinkered—tunnel vision straight back to 1839 and the invention of photography. A proofreading job, with translations from French and German, for which I have the original documents to double-check against, and comparison reading of published English texts written in that quaint 19th-century style. Quirky punctuation,—anyone?

I definitely haven't been getting out enough. So I told Nina, Sure. I figured I could always sit and read a book—for pleasure—if words failed to flow from my fingers.

Once at the coffeehouse, it hit me that I must get out more. It was so stimulating to sit there with pleasant music playing (singer-songwriters), not too loud; the babble of voices—including a couple of women speaking Dutch, and later a trio speaking some Balkan language; the espresso machine squelching; the clunk of mugs on the wooden tables; the woman at the counter announcing drinks up—double macchiato! nonfat Masala chai! half-caf large capuccino! Even the screaming child that got carried through the room on her father's shoulder made me smile. Life!

After we arrived and got our drinks, the only place big enough for all three of us (David came too) was a picnic table with benches at which an older man—short gray hair, thick dark-lensed glasses, blue fleece, blue jeans—sat staring at an unfolded piece of paper filled with small writing in blue ink. Nina, David and I settled in and caught up a bit: on the state of the country mostly (it's unavoidable), but also the movie Moonlight, which Nina went to see yesterday. (I have yet to see it. This week, I hope.)

As we were talking, the man in blue slid over on the bench and asked if we’d mind listening to a poem he'd been working on. He read it out loud in a strong Russian accent; it was difficult to hear it over the general hubbub, so afterward he slid the piece of paper (typewritten) over and David and Nina studied it, then shared their impressions. He offered the poem to us, since we’d expressed admiration. His name, Rudolph Tenenbaum, was penned at the top.

He later made his way around the room—in between bouts of staring at the handwritten page or just staring into space, chin resting on his hands, occasionally sipping his coffee drink—pulling a poem out of his pocket, sharing it. The same poem? A different one? I don't know. At one table, the one with the Dutch women, he was politely declined; at another, one of the auditors expressed praise and then mentioned a poet he admired, especially his later work (I did not hear the name). That fellow also asked what the poet intended to do with his poems, whether he was publishing them; I did not hear that answer either.

It was touching, his earnestness, his reaching out.

Here's his poem (which, curiously, I did not notice rhymed while he was reading it to us):

497

It is called a reduction disease.
What really happens to him?
Stage one: in horror he sees
Rot striking his every limb.

Stage two: his body is gone.
No face. Just a smooth place.
And yet he lives on and on
Out of time and space.

He feels truly bereft
His dear self left behind.
And what is left? What is left?
Just the mind. Just the naked mind.

Reduced to a thought he will try
To be strong, and proud, and free.
Even then he will call himself "I"
And refer to himself as me.

But now he seems to forget
The blue, the green and the red,
The beautiful woman he met,
The sweetness of milk and bread.

Indeed, he seems to forget
The trick of how to feel.
What is love and what is regret?
What is to ail and to heal?

He seems to forget all he knew:
The men, the streets and the trees.
It doesn't look like the flu.
It is the reduction disease.

But he still remembers the red.
To remember the red is fun!
"Half a loaf," somebody said,
"Is better than none."

The reality he will defy.
Defeated? He will disagree.
Even then he will call himself "I"
And refer to himself as "me."