Poetry 'n' Such with Paul Piatt

Gentle and heartfelt greetings to all of you discerning drinkers of the warm and aromatic coffee of life that is IWS.

Renown poet and IWS Literary Editor, Paul Piatt here once again, in order to share with you some of today’s finest in the world of poetry, prose, and people.

Today during our continuing journey along the sullied boulevard of words made magical, and life’s pentameters made iambic, I once again artfully attempt to put finger to keyboard, and in one of my more randy moments, “get edgy with it”…as the vapid and unkempt adolescents of today would say.

I first met today’s guest poet in Grenoble, France during the 1968 Olympics de la Winter.  We had been seated prominently and serendipitously next to each other during the finals of the pairs ice skating event.

It was during our sitting betwixt one and other in Grenoble, that I had the good fortune to meet beat poet icon Jack Kerouac’s, younger lesser known brother, Zach Kerouac.

You see, I was in France in the winter of 1968 working on my award winning book of poetry, “Jean Genet Drank Nothing but Cham-pain” and Zach, ostensibly enough, was also in France working on his critically acclaimed, yet far less well-known book of rhyme and introspection, “Sauerkraut Tastes Better in Paris.”

It was a melodious and fortuitous meeting between he and I, as we watched in stargazement, the matrimonied Russian pair of  Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov skate to their second gold medal in as many Olympics.

The duo’s symbiotic fluidity and symmetry begged and taunted Satan to dare question the divine, supernatural, and awe-inspiring power of God.

Zach and I sat as we watched the Russian couple exude an abundance of love, grace, and athleticism upon the ice that had never seen before and will never be seen again.  It was during their perfect execution of a parallel spread eagle that Zach turned to me and said…

“These two represent a non-sequitur when it comes to the Soviets.  They are in love and their child…that child that they bore together, the greater love of their life, is the ice. And what allegorically represents the Soviet government, Paul?  The blades of their skates.  They are expected to lace up their skates everyday for Mother Russia and cut their ice child in the back.”

My thoughts moved from the exceptional beauty and excellence efficaciously provided by Belousova and Protopovov to the blunt force trauma of lexicon that Zach had instantaneously uttered.  He could see it all.

He could see that resting beneath a gold medal is a chest deflated…Beneath athletic success there is struggle…Beneath beauty, lie faults.

We kept in touch after that event which helped to shape our lives and provide definition and solidity to our souls, and before it was published in his 1974 book, “Big Brother Is Negating You”, he sent me an excerpt from that book that wondrously describes what he was feeling that day in 1968 in Grenoble…

The Sun

The Sun is Hot.
Hot, Hot, Hot.
The Sun is Yellow.
Yellow, Yellow, Yellow.
Well…
Not Exactly Yellow.

Just as the glorious sun radiates its imperfections through its spots, you and I do as well, as did the beautiful and seemingly perfect pair of ice skaters Belousova and Protopovov...Zach Kerouac is brilliant.

And now gentle readers, I bid you adieu, and look forward to once again offering you the best of the written word.

But for now, as I travel the road less traveled,

Paul Piatt

mattmaniws@ymail.com
@mattman_iws