WE WALKED For Allen Cohen: 1940 to 2004

© Copyright by Martin Linhart, 2004

We Walked
We walked down Haight Street,
From 1371, Where The Oracle Lived
To Hippy Hill in Golden Gate Park.

I felt silly the Oracle was thirty-five years ago!
I wondered, how
Would Allen have viewed this Procession?
Would Allen have gone
On this Procession?
I asked myself not really
knowing the answer.

Afterwards, I was glad,
I was glad I walked
with you!

I thought of the long journey,
Brooklyn to NOW!
Allen old friend, Allen my brother,
yes we walked
each of us
together
on our own journey.

We walked out of Brooklyn
you in 62, me in 65,
into the Golden Gate and
the promise
it held for each of us:
the same,
yet different.

I appeared at your door in 1965
moving in with you and Laurie,
becoming each other's world.
Again in 1967 I appeared at your door,
again I moved in with you and Laurie!
this time your world encompassed
Neil Rose and
his very young girlfriend, Honey.

You walked into the rebirth of Oracle,
co-editing with Stephen Levine.
Later I walked into your world,
the San Francisco Oracle, and
walked in a fantasy world of color and
magic that was the Haight Ashbury reflected by
an Oracle filled with tales of magic,
on pages of color with the promise of
even more spiritual, magical, colorful
unfolding.

You walked into the Love Book where
Lenore Kandel's poem and you
stood on trial for obscenity.

Prosecuted by Frank Shaw,
fuming, zealous outrage,
as if
the raw expression of
sexual love
was murder.

We walked from the changes of 1967 into 1968 when finally
the movement self-imploded into chaos,
hard drugs, rip-offs,
murder and over-doses.

Ron Thelin presided over the death
of the hippy,
the birth of the free man.
It was 1968,
the birthing of the woman's movement,
where we became free people!

Walking from the hippy movement, the promise
exploded into madness:
a tear-streaked, clown-faced joker with
soot, speed, bad teeth
and love-less-ness. The magic gone.

The promise evaporating, becoming
longing for re-birth, for rejuvenation,
for reinvention. A new beginning!

We walked from San Francisco, into an un-chartered wilderness of self
discovery,
new family, a sense of community.
We walked,
all the way back
to the land,
each of us on our own
journey together,
into an expanded sense of family.

You in Mendocino at
Table Mountain Ranch,
and me in Siskiyou County at
Black Bear Ranch.

Where we experienced
joys, pains,
bonding,
the ecstasy of birth,
our extended family,
a larger sense of ourselves,
the world through births,
the communal experience!
rearing of children!

Real life filled with
tears and laughter,
blood and sweat,
urine and feces.

The lost loves, the found loves,
the many loves
we encountered.

We walked out of our youth into
our twilight,
so to speak.
We walked into
new families, new bonding,
while keeping
the old.

Walking in Hepatitis C,
our paths diverge.
I am asymptomatic and you
became a candidate for
and received
a liver transplant.

Was it all for nothing?
The cancer had spread to your hip!

I saw you,
in your final struggles,
coming to terms
with yourself,
the realization of
your own death!

Allen, in your twilight
you brought so many
of us together.

I will never forget when in those last days
I entered your room.
You were happy to see me,
greeting me with three guttural growls
while reaching for my hand.

To Ann
you expressed surprise
at how hard
it was
for you
to let go!

In my own mind's eye
it seems it would not be so hard.
When I know it is time to exit,
I will leave!

In reality I cannot know
until that time,
when confronted
with my own death.

April 23rd, it is your 64th birthday, we celebrate you.
My 64th birthday will be on December 9th.
April 29th at 10:23 PM you squeezed Ann's hand three times and took your last breath.
On April 30th I came to say goodbye one last time.

And saw you on your right side, your right fist poised
under your chin, eyes half open.
Your expression seemed to say:
"Oh, so that's it!!!"

You entered into that unknown,
joining many of those brothers who
took their last walk:

Richard Marley, Michael Guerra, Alan Hoffman,
Fred Klein, Ron Thelin, Kirby Doyle, and many others.

Emmet Grogan,
found
nodded to death,
on the West End Line,
in Coney Island,
Stillwell Avenue. The last stop!

Ironically the same line,
the West End Line, on the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit,
we rode
in our Bensonhurst childhood
from Coney Island to Times Square.

I see the photograph.
A portrait of Fred Klein
shot by Steve Walzer in 63.

There is a ball-like point of light
in the upper left and
when I focus on the light,

a face appears
and the light is reflected
off of eye-glasses.

Allen,
it is your glasses,
your face
and it is your light!

And yes, Allen,
I will miss your light.

Allen Cohen Tributes and Memories
BACK TO ALLEN COHEN POETRY

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