now Luria

now Luria Dickson
and the women were saying
a sing-along folk event

and the late Rick Griffin
his parents were Communists
they ran into his son, who’d grown his hair
and joined the merriment
who died of a drug overdose in 1970
they divorced in 1993

now Siena Riffia
always naked under her mink coat
fighting the fucking revolution
died of a suspected overdose on a New York subway in 1978

There was so much dope rising in the air
you can’t build a social movement
on love and liberation

we’re making goddamn dinner again

Source text: www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/lsd-drugs-summer-of-love-sixties

both of them

both of them
not just poetry

the latter seems to me to have been just as full
and, for the record, entirely “experimental”
as it currently exists

for better or for worse
those committed
and inadequate
attended
a small epiphany

I don’t mean all
thankfully not all
thankfully not always

I don’t recall the former, of course
only this one matches
this is a point I will come back to later.

Source text: joyouscrybaby.com/2012/05/22/marjorie-perloff-and-the-failure-of-success/

it’s right around the corner

it’s right around the corner, in eight days
so please don’t think I am
not necessarily a happier person right now,
but a person who takes less things for granted

he was 24
I miss hearing his name very much
even when in a crowd

having no children of my own
and being estranged from my father
I very much agree.
like your son
who adored him

Source text: therumpus.net/2011/07/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-78-the-obliterated-place/

Stephen S. Power is a Pushcart-nominated poet who has published work most recently in “Clarion,” “Innisfree Poetry Journal,” “Iron Horse Literary Review,” “The MacGuffin” and “Measure.” His first novel, “The Dragon Round” will be published by Simon451 in July 2016, and his stories have appeared at “AE” and “Daily Science Fiction.” He tweets at @stephenspower, and his website is stephenspower.com