Patti Smith, Genius

    1997 Patti Smith got in my face. In my eyes, closer than anyone's ever faced me before or since. She was leaving The St. Mark's Church Poetry Project's Allen Ginsberg Memorial. 

For Allen ...

Peter Orlovsky Memorial at The Poetry Project 

 Patti Smith, recalled “always being in the same room with Peter, but never speaking a word to one another.” They bonded through the unspoken – from being surrounded by an intellectual circle of those who were accustomed to speaking. 

    So Smith, 1997. One thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven years old? Maybe? Leaving church, side-door, she makes a beeline for me crossing through the middle of a circle of people I'd come upon short minutes before. After coming back from walking, smoking pot. In my face, directly in my eyes, Ms. Smith said, "Where's Peter?" And if I hadn't heard his tear-ridden missing Allen lament? Nor read of Allen's last hours? Whew. 

    I didn't say anything either. Just nodded behind her, hoping I was right, having never seen him before. "Oh." She consoled him and had to split cause the rain outside is bad for her guitar in the case. Artists. Anyway. She and I get around. Well, she does. I don't get far, recluse that I are. Har, har. 

    Hint, hint, "NO COMMENT." 

    AND NOW, band, Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith -