Paul.
This is Paul Blackburn, a terrific friend.
We met in the very early '50s and he subsequently
had a Fulbright and came to spend time in Majorca
before going to Toulouse to take up the Fulbright
and the two wives loathed each other.
[LAUGHTER]
"Not to excuse us, it was Paul.
I'll never forgive myself for the violence but tell me
he said Paul Blackburn pushed and turned
by both hopeless wives who were spitting venom
and point another into Heaven.
We've got ourselves to Majorca mid-fifties
where one could live for peanuts while writing great works
and looking at the constant blue sea, et cetera.
Why did I fight such surrogate battles of existence
with such a specific friend as he was for sure.
Our first meeting in NYC 1950 we talked 2 and 1/2 days
straight without leaving the apartment.
He knew ordinate dates by heart and began unconsciously
translating the province of poets
and was studying with Moses Hultz at NYU.
How sweet this thoughtful beleaguered vulnerable person
whose childhood was full of New England abusive confusion.
His mother the too often absent poet Frances Frost.
I wish he were here now.
He could go on talking.
I'd have company of my own age in this drab burnt out trash
dump we call the phenomenal world where
he once walked the wondrous Earth and knew its pleasures."