Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch for God’s sake, Kenneth Koch
reading to twenty people in a room above a pub.
And not even poems, short plays. Crazy. Next day
he wheeled a suitcase into Huddersfield
buffet, three tennis racquets strapped to it
across the Atlantic, to meet for breakfast
on his way to York York. He was a person
not a book or memorial. He ate
a sandwich called a butty and drank tea
not coffee when in Rome, which he knew,
incidentally, like the back of his head.
It was before cameraphones. Behind that wall
with its artificial art a train
sweated and shivered. Behind that a second train
said something or other about fame,
which can only get up from the page
when the reader is content with
or without it. Of course he was a man,
but he spoke like a thoughtless boy. They all did,
and that was their greatness, not least the
reflection of a convex age, the great
that’s to say among the great, and still
at the platform; another saw a river
of fish in the stream, much favoured, and the last
was the first to live only afterwards – on a beach –
who brought a brimming anecdote to his lips.
Remember? The day passed. A train
is just a vehicle. And suddenly it’s evening.