GREG BYRNE ON LOU REED

Rough for Lou (in 3:2 time)

i.m. Lou Reed

It’s good that you didn’t make us wait,

Like you had to, for your man.

We awaited our storm in trickled streets.

We waited on Sunday morning’s time-dazed stare,

Unaware that our Freeport baby was gone –

The end of his gig, his very last song.

Stiletto Venus in her pink

Leather hair now ministers to you where

You paint the Lower East Side again,

While we curve blindly backwards,

Tattooed to the wheels

Of the ‘A’ train on its final bend.

You stood your ground against the heat

Trying to bust you, the shrink

Morons blowing your bulbs with ECT

And the rock n’ roll stations

That banned you. White light, dark beat,

They failed to piss your mind.

Now your electric guitar plays on

From screech taut steel fire

To the sweet velvet of your voice,

Plangent, wrapped in vellum.

Some kinds of love

Are like that – seamless.

You bloomed suddenly from the Bizarre

To the Tai Chi raven that left us.

You summed it all up in your chord

Tripod – where one was fine, two on the edge,

All the way up to jazz on three.

Lou – the unique, the inimitable.

Now my tears melt with sweet Jane

And Sylvia as I play

Your music once more.

No more black coat and deep shades;

No more bending knees, whips, kicks or kisses.

You went quick. You didn’t make us wait.

Greg Byrne is a British poet. This poem had its debut in Camden last night.

Comments

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