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My Yoko Ono Moment

for Nick Twemlow

It’s annoying
how much
junk mail
comes through
the slot
& accumulates
at the foot
of the stairs

mostly menus
from restaurants
in the neighborhood

endlessly
coming through
the slot

despite the sign
we put on the door:
No Advertisements
No Solicitors

One night
I scoop up the whole pile
on my way out
(as I do periodically)
& dump it
in the trash can
on the corner
of West Broadway & Spring

just as Yoko Ono
happens to be strolling
through SoHo
with a male companion

She watches me
toss the menus

then turns to her friend
& says, “I guess
no one reads those.”

Copyright @ 2014 by David Trinidad. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on June 6, 2014.

David Trinidad earned a BA in English from California State University and an MFA in creative writing from City University of New York, Brooklyn College.

About David Trinidad

Themes

Memories

New York City

About this Poem

“At a dinner for the poet Nick Twemlow after he read at Columbia College, Yoko Ono came up in conversation. I told my anecdote about her, then said, ‘I guess it’s not much of an anecdote.’ But Nick liked it, and that prompted me to turn it into a poem and dedicate it to him.”

—David Trinidad

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More by this poet

Ode to Dusty Springfield

                    What makes
                     a voice
                     distinct?
                     What special
                     quality
                     makes it
                     indelible?
                     Yours is plaintive,
                     as any singer
                     of torch songs
                     must be,
                     yet endowed
                     with confidence,
                     and fully
                     in command.
                     Deep and
                     resonant,
                     a bit husky

David Trinidad

2018

The afterlife of fame

is dark
a neglected mansion

with vanishing court
rats in the empty pool

and antiquated actress
languishing

as ghost of her famous self
flickers in the projector’s beam

or framed in silver
haunts every room

Face unrecognizable?
Name forgotten?

O float me to Oblivion
in my swan bed

with my bandaged wrists
and doors shorn of locks

with swirl of my cigarette smoke
and glitter of my jewels

and silent flutter
of my weightless tulle

David Trinidad

2016

One of 100

To be one such one—for one night only.
To be singled out
for this brief distinction

and fly first class (on miles),
wear black tie, walk red carpet.
To be met with smiles

and camera-flash
and then be asked,
by a stringer,
“Who are you?”

“A poet? What’s it
like to be that?”

One only exists
when being photographed.
One fawns all over
the aged activist—
infirm but famous.
One hungers for
the elusive hors d’oeuvres.

David Trinidad

2016

Poems

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My Yoko Ono Moment

More by this poet

Ode to Dusty Springfield

The afterlife of fame

One of 100

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