***Originally published November 28, 2022***
When I resigned from corporate news a decade ago, I began the process of healing my heart by filling it with art. I was writing screenplays at the time, so I began immersing myself in the Golden Age of Cinema. I gave myself a PhD in film history on a portable Sony DVD blu-ray player, under the tutelage of a stage actor who moonlighted in Amoeba’s film section.
I have always been a poet, and even gave birth to one. My daughter is a Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate, and a West Coast Youth Poet Laureate. And she was also the poetry editor for the brilliant film, Summertime, where she performs an iconic poem for gay rights on a bus and where her amazing words about Los Angeles narrate the film’s opening sequence.
I am beginning to excavate some of my Before Times art, and wanted to share this poem with you. I wrote it in 2015, when I was going through my John Barrymore phase. It is based on a true ghost story about loneliness’ haunting.
Blame It On Barrymore
I can’t recall the day that Barrymore swaggered into my life, but what does it matter, the point is he’s here, and I am no longer alone
Even as I type this I hear him correcting my use of swaggered
He prefers staggered, because he likes to keep it real, even when he’s pretending
I turn a blind eye to Barrymore’s aridity
I too am thirsty
But as I slither through my thirteenth year without spirits,
Jack holds my hand
And I creep into the next dawn
Never alone
And Barrymore is never alone either
He died lonely, in the clutches of a whore
But he’s not alone, he is loved
And no one loves him more than me
Not even Gene Fowler
Who taught me what love is
I can’t make public appearances
Without offending someone
Blame it on Barrymore
We are both natural born raconteurs
Always trying to one up each other
Just for sport because we are truly devoted
The way Jack was devoted to Dolores
Oh and the things that now come out of my mouth
Truly, hideously, wickedly, brilliantly Barrymore
Barrymore and I both are trying to unfuck the world
I have a collection of living Barrymores
And Jack is doing the curating
Thanks to Jack’s unfailing desire to rescue strays
I have a city full of miscreants who I water daily
With tears and spirits and petty ducats
And prayer
They know they are safe with me
They come with guitars
And canvas
With wings
With Steinways and standup bass
They come with pens
And despair
I take them all into my heart
Just like Barrymore’s friends did “the monster”
The Hyde that lurked beneath the opera clothes
They never abandoned each other
I mean, Jack might abandon his pet vulture, maybe,
A monkey, sure
But not the writers he called his friends
They were tight
Jack loves the writers, and that’s why he likes me
He thinks I have potential
Despite continually prompting me to get on with the libretto
And to refrain from using expletives in front of his whores
There’s a tree dying in my neighbor’s yard that reminds me of Jack,
But of course everything reminds me of Jack
The tree is continually dying then mounting comebacks
Often in the same week
Standing ovations
A sea of red roses
As he recalls Hamlet verbate
He killed em in london
The great profeel
He hangs on my wall
In psychedelic repose
He’s the last of my loves I bid adieu nightly
Good night, sweet prince, I whisper
Tomorrow we creep into the dawn
Sober and alive
Hand in hand
Getting on with the libretto
Trying to unfuck the world
“Mr. Barrymore, Hamlet never actually sleeps with Ophelia, right?”
“In the Chicago company ….”
Wow just beautiful 🤩