his father was a classics scholar fluent in greek
for David Donnell
Poet
St. Mary’s Ontario
when i first met him he was teaching Poetry 101
older but still puckish his babyface still present
not roly-poly sweet sharp edges Scottish mischief
no cherub he he wrote like the God of Poetry won a GG
lived alone in a walk-up on social security
t-shirts yellow-torn fingers yellow-worn cigs flicked
into gutters with elan so how does a man fall from a
balcony without knowing it waking up smashed to
smithereens laying for 2 yrs not terribly forlorn reading
Cormac McCarthy’s hillbilly bible Suttree a personal fave
my mother asked if DD was trying to get next to me he’d said
he found me easy on the eyes +that my life read like a
broadway play it does his laugh was grizzly-slow building
to crescendo not an ornate man nor an ornate poet
DD said: put the ice cream on your tongue + let it sit there
he worshipped the word the book he wiped a table clean of
every speck every droplet before a book was placed sacred-space
for editing my poems
no glasses couldn’t see he mostly inhaled them growling
well you sure can bust a rhyme and you don’t bore me!
then he died just missing the pandemic oh my sweet petunia
i’d like to have given him some money or something more
DD once told me: Aprill most people are moored in their own
bullshit ya i know what you mean
__
..i enjoyed the seafood chowder at the Gladstone with pretty Aprill
but i had to go back to the kitchen with my wide bowl & say: more
broth for God’s sake, more baguette, how about some fucking butter?
(Watermelon Kindness dedicated to Sydney Crosby 2010)
Winter 2026 ..for David Donnell..a.k.a. Krispin..a fine mentor..
..of his poetry it was said David Donnell is generally acknowledged
as a master of the conversational intellectual poem..
RIP 1939 – 2020
songanddancegirl 