A Poem by Frederick Pollack

 
Near the Fillmore

Myth isn't cheap:  generations
of blood and stagnation
went into it, then billions
of entertainment dollars.  Reality
is always there, if you look:  he lost
his looks, she looks and gentleness; this year
they each died broke.  But back then

the candles, not too many, actually
created an effect
as of appreciative spirits.  The incense
merged nicely with their smells and that of weed.
She kneeling, braced on his shoulder, felt
desire, not again but still, and his
returning.  While he talked,

trying to express the rare and sudden
sense of being as handsome as she
was beautiful; and it was all
mixed up with his hope
for this poem, or was it that band,
the new insight sweeping the land . . . 
Those were the days of our enthusiasm.



Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness (Story Line Press, 2022), and four collections, A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape With Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and The Liberator (Survision Books, Ireland, 2024), as well as man other poems in print and online journals.  Website:  www.frederickpollack.com 

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