Sunday, July 05, 2009

Robert Creeley

SAD WALK

I’ve come to the old echoes again,
know it’s where I’ve been before,
see the same old sun.

But backwards, from all the yesterdays,
it’s still the same way,
who gets and who pays.

I was younger then,
walking along still open,
young and having fun.

But now it’s just a sad walk
to an empty park,
to sit down and wait, wait to get out.

-- from On Earth: Last Poems and an Essay (2006)
supporting material for a review forthcoming in The Rover

5 comments:

Ross McCague said...

Reads like a poetic motif for Dylan's songs of this century:

The sun is beginning to shine on me,
But it's not like the sun that used to be,
Everything looks far away.

Let me know if you're still going to Winnipeg. Loved the reading here in T.O. Cheers, Ross.

Brian Campbell said...

Hi Ross,

Thanks for your words: they're always welcome. I've booked a reading in Winnipeg for Oct. 2, and am trying to set up another. I suppose I'll be booking plane tickets soon.

Brian

Unknown said...

So that you know the context of this poem: when we were preparing a special issue of Sirena: Poetry, Art and Criticism, in honor of Bob Zieff (composer of many of the pieces played by Chet Baker), we send Robert Creeley the music score of Zieff’s “Sad Walk”, along with a CD containing five variations of the same piece, and asked Robert to write a poem in reaction to what he heard; Creeley’s “Sad Walk” is what came out of it.

Jorge R. Sagastume
Editor of Sirena

Brian Campbell said...

Jorge R: thanks for that inside information. It's extremely valuable.

Unknown said...

No problem, Brian, it is a pleasure. If you send me your email I'll send you the pdf of that section. Mine is: sagastuj@dickinson.edu

Jorge