For The Godfather, Daniel Thompson
For The Godfather, Daniel Thompson (1935-2004)
at the outpost coffee house you said, “you seem like a nice kid, now go away”
at the “together help line” it was, “hey kid, don’t i know you?”
after a reading of some hot-off-the-press buddhist third class junkmail oracle jazz,
you advised, “try to stay out of jail” then offered your card, “just in case”
years later, down in kent, you got right in my face,
and said, “nice work, ever read at a junk yard?”
poet laureate, king of hearts, jack of the arts
tradesman, fisherman, great grey chief
bondsman, bread man, blanket man, thief
stealing time, and offering rhyme in return, you backed me into gigs:
“can you pick me up?” “got a minute?”
“what are you doin’ right now?”
“any poems on you?”
so we did militant larynx, midnight poets, at the arabica, hart crane’s valentine,
and readings in honor of d.a. levy and langston hughes,
PAND at cain park, dan’s slam, luigi’s in your ear, mark’s reader,
barry’s library, suzanne’s book store,
on stage at CPT, hessler street fair, barking spider,
and gigs with sparks, salinger, melton, drumplay and brother ray
so when they say, “did you know him well?”
i say, “hell, every poet did”
and every one of the hundreds who actually went to church that day
had something to say, a poem to read, a story to tell
so, with a kiss of the ring and a wave of the hand,
i say thank you to the best damn poet in the land
of cleve,
from which, so many artists eventually split
but not you, daniel,
you stayed, and the band played,
and we all got paid
in smiles,
and miles of poems,
good deeds,
words to heed
and we still hear you in the wind
as it whips across the flats, cuts carefully up superior,
takes one-o-five to east boulevard, then jogs to juniper
whispers across the mic at the spider,
and playfully rustles leaves and tussles hair,
at the annual hessler street fair
Jeffrey Bowen
This tribute to activist, advocate, and Cuyahoga County, OH Poet Laureate, Daniel Thompson, was awarded First Place in the 2015 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Competition & was featured in the City Club of Cleveland’s “The Soul of Cleveland Project”, broadcast live on WCPN 90.3 FM.
Originally published:
2015 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology. Crisis Chronicles Press, 2015
Later appeared:
Cleveland Poetics: May 2015. Cleveland Poetics, 2015
The Soul of Cleveland. The City Club of Cleveland Arts & Culture Forum, 2015