Taciturnity  

Listening to Mehldau's "Elegy For William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg"
it's clumsy opening bars sad and stumbling
into gentle melodies of longing for a past in the future
a past where the great minds never really leave,
they continue their outward gaze
and mumble with a coherence reserved for public speaking.

Was the white bull Nandi there with you too, Shiva?
Did you ever think that the fevered egos were shed?

Funny now,
not the recordings nor the elicited responses of your audiences,
your last shows after 16 years of pounding your head against the American psyche,
but to think that all the while
your propaganda, though based in a period now removed by 8 years,
still drums me to this place inside where I ponder the love you had for people
hidden beneath your jaded discourse
and that it bears relevance even now,
which, in hindsight, is sadder than anything else I can imagine.

             8 years after
             and things still haven't changed.

Shiva, I'm addressing you,
have you been appeased for productivity,
growth, evolution of the humanity you left behind?

I muse to myself
about what you were on the cusp of accomplishing
(could comedic destruction have been that far off?)
those distant, lofty points lost to pancreatic cancer at age 32.

Funny,
how I can in one minute double over, keel over
in fits of laughter
and the next
weep, trying to imagine
your last days at home with your family;
the trial and error of your mother with John Hyatt, Miles Davis, and Elvis Presley;
the trial and error of getting your father to take mushrooms
and you rediscovering Huck Finn.

I can try to piece it all together Shiva,
you, the body Linga, denoting male energy and reproduction.
Perhaps you did, indeed, drink the poison
meant to destroy the universe, blue throated one,
naked ascetic, source of the river Ganges, wearer of a cosmic crown.

After you said your final farewells,
you were left with 12 days of taciturnity,
a seeming eternity after all the calculated scathing things you had to say before.
You were left with 12 days to think back,
maybe fondly reminisce inside your head.
Was it all finished?
Were there dreams of a legacy that could stretch out for years,
pop artifacts, smug elitists quoting you verbatim?
Was there any vanity for you,
a never-doubted belief of the single consciousness theory,
you,
Shiva,
the Destroyer,
Mr. Hicks
after birthing regeneration through your powers of destruction,
would be there on the other side to greet us,
to re-assure us
that it was all just a ride,
with open arms for embrace
and:

"I told you so."

© 2006 Michael Appleby