The Jimbaroo

Dangerous Jobs

A Mystery in Boxes

In another believable All-American brokenheart movie
to be directed by Frank Capra, the local cooperative school
was given two weeks notice to shut down. Everything inside
was sold this weekend including boxes and boxes of books.
It will be even worse watching the land be torn down,
the apple trees, blackberries, the field and hill and
the ramp my son and I played wizards on.
These are some treasures.
The rest of the story I'll write eventually.

Inspiration #31

well into new Novel #31
these are inspirational clues

Another Harvey Farewell

This is really the way it happened back in 1998
when I met Harvey Pekar. We had lunch
at a restaurant next to the bowling alley
in Huron, Ohio. I remember he asked
the waitress to define "chicken jo-jos,"
an item he ordered from the menu.
I asked him about that Isaac B. Singer
book 'Scum' and how was R. Crumb?
After the food, we went to his car
in the parking lot where he popped
open the big trunk to reveal scores of
LPs in cardboard boxes.


A Cleveland Surprise

The broken gray light of winter brought down
on asphalt the scene where Cleveland barks,
"Hey! I'm selling records in the parking lot!"
to a few cold cars and two people walking out.
He opens the trunk of his sedan and there's
a cardboard box with Mendelssohn on top and
who knows what else is pushed in the stack.
The man standing next to me got hooked
looked in with Cleveland's carnival talk,
a song and dance playing strong as any
old Medicine Show. I watched Cleveland
rope him in to a 50 cent sale and then
it was only after bows goodbyes entailed
when the car drove away we discovered
a colorful sleeve with no vinyl inside.

d.a levy's book

it was much simpler when i walked
in the summer to the North Branch library
& couldnt find books on Tantracism, Dadaism,
Buddhism, Egypt, contemporary poetry--
there was a lot of American Propaganda
i was very disappointed--i really wanted
to study--instead i sat away the summers
trying to become as soft as the trees
trying to understand where they
got their faith in life
growing--growing patiently
leaping towards the sun

--d.a levy from 'Suburban Monastery Death Poem'

From The Marrahwannah Quarterly, aka
The Mary Jane Quarterly volume 2, n.1 1966:

levy writes in his editorial 'A SORT OF SWAN SONG/
OR A LETTER TO TOMORROW FROM THE
CLEVELAND MERRY-GO-ROUND'

"collecting books of contemporary poetry to eventually
give to the Cleveland Public Librarys inadequate
poetry section"

...fragment from the destroyed journal of 1965...

"Downtown at the Public Library i stop in Brett Hall to
stare at the William Sommer Mescaline mural until
one of the old time librarians thinks im trying to
hustle up trade and chases me away with a 15 lb
Gold Star Mothers Medal swinging like a mace.
I take out a copy of 'Tibetan Yoga & Secret Doctrines'
& leave suspiciously..."