you dared me to write about ian curtis

a good bit of my time      has been spent     regretting the death(s)    of those who     died younger than

me     (younger than i was     at whatever point in time      i was in (at that time))

i dont know how old i was when this started     (or) when i became aware that it was    something that

had (already) existed in me        for some time

i (actually) think it (probably) began      as a sense of     (just) how (frickin) awful    it is    when talented

genius artistic beauty types    die (unnecessarily) young

i can definitely remember       being in middle school     and reading a newspaper article      about the

lynyrd skynyrd plane crash

and (then) john lennon got shot

and then jim morrison died at twenty seven     when i was fourteen (?)     (for me, i mean    it was

fourteen year old me     who learned about (and (deeply) regretted)   his death    twelve yeers

before)

(well, as deeply as a fourteen yeer old can plausibly go)   (it felt like a horrible fucking loss, the twelve yeers of       no songs, no poetry     (missing songs/poetry)     between his death   and my sense of loss

(or) may be   it was when i played juliet     in a class enacted scene     styrofoam cups for breasts    with

chalk stuck into     the cups bottoms for nipples...

at what point     did the deluge begin   ?     (for me)    

i lost hamlet (too young)     for the first time     in eleventh grade   

(did you know shakespeare was      only fifty-two    when he died  ?)

f scott fitzgerald     (and zelda)     the villanelle in the notes     at the end of    the bell jar

i was (probably) a senior      in high school     when we went to a space

where a band was playing      (classmates, peepholes i (actually) knew)    and i had never seen      a show like that  

somebody i kinda half-knew    screaming out a punk version    of means to an end

(and) another friend     later explaining (to me)       by dropping a needle    on a spinning disc

that was joy division      he said     and told me the story...

for now, lets (just) skip ahead      forty yeers or so      and a (good) guess is.....     

neerly half (if not more)      of the writers  singers   artists   i care (most) about

have died      younger than i am now

(and) in six months     i’ll be the age     when clarice lispector died

ten years older     than dead frida kahlo    

six years older    than dead rilke    sixteen years older     than dead kafka      nineteen years older

than dead van gogh...

and they (just) keep frickin       dying in the past    so that theres nothing      we can do (about it)

except (maybe) to   keep adding names     to the list we     started yeers ago

where we     (actually) calculated the (exact) number     of days (months, yeers)      they had been alive

[it was here    we discovered   (?)     that delmore schwartz and david berman      had lived the exact

same number of days      a fact which (until you read this)    i believed i was (likely)    the only person

on earth   who (might) have been     aware of it…]

but, is this (really) about ian curtis      you (might) (rightfully) ask...

well yes    (and no)   (and may be)     i might (vaguely) answer

as i scroll    through my    fifteen page document...       (spans, i call it, with a subtitle, durations)

coming to my note(s) on ian curtis:    (here i cut and paste from the original document):

Ian Curtis 7.15.56-5.18.80 8709 days  23y 10m 4d 286.4 moonths  4.6.80 first attempt  5.18.80 final attempt,hanging

im not (so very) sure    but, if memory serves, his first attempt     was drowning     (or) maybe it was

over dose  ?

either way     six and a half months later      john lennon was shot    (one i actually knew about in real

time)       (if there is such a thing)

like every yeer     it was a bad yeer for tragic deaths     and (despite appearances)     im not always

one hundred percent sure      ive (we’ve) survived it... (or (just) outlived it)

ten yeers ago     i watched a show on satellite tv    (nee streaming)    (and) (i believe it was the final

episode)        one of the scenes     shows a little boy     turning himself into a warrior    (of sorts)

and joy divisions atmosphere is playing      

and it was (one of) the most powerful       scenes id ever seen... (i thought)

i downloaded the song     to my ipod (nee walkman)     (my record collection     long since gone)

and i listened      over and over      (while driving)     to ian curtis      tell  me...

dont walk away      in silence....   

ten yeers (or so) later        i saw his face     embedded in yer pome

and joked to you     (as yet unknown to me)   

dont make me write about ian curtis

and you responded

dare ya !    dont walk away...   (from a challenge)

(excuse me, for taking liberties with punctuation and spacing and parentheses while (ostensibly) quoting

you)  but

just like paul westerberg      (the replacements)

i will dare...

here is

my poem about ian curtis

in the late eighties

i would stand

in the record store

looking through all

the band posters

for albums, for songs

for tours...

you were dead

before you came here

you only came through sound

and image    (images)

and other peeple

singing yer songs

i dont know how old i was

when i first

saw you moving

on a screen

i dont know

what i was expecting

(it (certainly) wasnt

what i saw)

i couldnt believe

it was you

(that i was seeing you)

moving   on a screen

this was before   yew toob

(you couldnt (just) see

whatever you wanted to see)

when the way

you think of things

completely changes

nothing (from the outside)

looks any different

but (sometimes)

(from the inside)

every thing looks different

for a while.

you died when i

had (just) turned twelve

and waited there

(in death)

for the rest of us...

we’re coming   (we say)

(reluctantly)

just give us time

(not) to walk away...

please like, etc if you like, etc (and thanks)