Bettina Jonic
Originally published in The Evergreen Review Issue 121 in December, 2009.
the need to attain a visibilty and to personalize
their importance in Sam's life / a form of
self-aggrandizement is perpetrated by the infamous
an act wedged between cannibalism and necrophilia
treating my confidences or joy in remembering ...
what can only be known to Sam and myself ...
in their minds' eye / as public domain ....
emails are sent revealing the jewels they have plunderd
and adorned themselves with / expecting me to respond
like some kind of masochist enjoying and overjoyed
that chunks of me are now recounted and bedecked
as someone else's knowledge, memory trip, and
experience before academia and public forums ...
preening themselves as elite aficionados
able to bring enlightenment about Sam ....
neglecting to mention they are not the person
or source of what is being relayed nor unfortunately
in repeated circumstances is the information
relayed accurately ...
to name and shame / only feeds a naked need
for notoriety on Sam's back as well as mine
have I ever been guilty of
usurping another's identity / no
I am too arrogant to have ever felt the need
to cloak myself in someone else's cloth ....
through quirks of 'fate' I have crossed paths with
many deemed celebrated / perhaps Sam the
most notorious however / I was brought up in LA
and have an engrained aversion to 'celebrity fucking'
be it Sam Beckett or those of lesser ilk ....
I can find no parallels in the world of music
to match the mendacity of those who populate
the written word / publishers who annex an
author's works as if there own / those who strive
to mount the academic ladder as leading authorities
of Sam bolt the doors against an authentic voice
so as not to be drowned out by authenticity ....
there is a difference to know Sam personally or ....
to read his prose or experience his plays on stage ...
two of his initiating english publishers / Barney Rosset
and my former husband John Calder / drank through
the night with Sam, played games of chess and billiards
littered Paris with debauched excesses ...
never scrounged through my rubbish bin ...
they had no need / their bins were as unique
and as full as mine ...
how do I feel towards the self seeking fraudulent
'star turns' who bolt doors against a voice that
sings in tune / revealing them to be tone deaf ...
well / I certainly wouldn't include them in a rendering
of the Bach Magnificat and ...
Sam didn't like Bach ...
october 13 / '09
