Happy Andy Kaufman Day

CONCEPT

Dear Andy Kaufman,

As you know, you were born on this date in the year 1949. You were an inspired comic, a persistent enigma, and a prophetic voice. You died of cancer on May 16, 1984. I was five at the time.

How are you?

How is Papeete?

I thought you might miss the snow, so I'll share a couple of poems I've written about wintertime in Chicago:

#1
Under the Heat Lamps

Blood stirs - wind whirs
and encircles like ornithopters.
The latest leaves cackling symphonies,
and snow that dusts the ground

while the crazy man with the blue-jean vest,
with the shattered spectacles
staggers on the silent street below
and weaves his arms around.

It's cold, sub-zero, in Chicago;
the whirring wind circs like an o
and while I love the morning by proxy
I hate the withering moment collapses,
rends our wires and numbs our nose
for praxis by practice, faxes, income taxes
for the benefit of?
Yeah...
Them.

So standing, still, shivering,
under the heat lamps of the Thorndale stop.
6 AM.
On Tuesday.
I am caught with a thought
of those Brighton Beach Russians
who, I've heard, will browse books
in the snowy morn.
Who laugh and breathe smoke.
They place tables
on icy curbs.
They play chess.
Drink vodka. Laugh.
I need heat lamps to knead
my knotted midwestern brow,
and a train to rush me downtown.

I've always loved the morning by proxy.
I'm always hoping to arrive.


#2
The Cold Moon

And shivering, I see the gibbous moon
as it is strung between the walls and trees
and bobs and dances above the mirroring lake
in tune with my stride, my gaze, my knocking knees.

The air up there is empty in the dome
and no clouds are pressing shadows down,
and trucks report and buses vomit sound,
and the Man up there? His smile is a frown.

He thinks we think it's chilly when it's clear.
He thinks, "I know an ice so far beyond
their glass-thin notions of weariness, of wear.
They think they can turn their backs and look beyond."

He thinks, "I know an ice so old and wide
it passes on the limbs and kills the mind."

~ Connor