In Memory of Brian Donovan
1939-2013
Always – perhaps not always – you were genial
In imitation of now-gone personalities, perhaps
Drunk – that described person – and yourself, so
Much that it hurt to laugh, although strong beer
Gives a hint of perfection, jollity while standing
At the bar, not sitting – that would be passive
So that when recounting a quiver of passivity,
It was “up” the humor, quick as booze, standing
Or sitting, the wit had a lure of more than beer,
But whipping humor brought forth dexterously, so
Ironic, sharp, pointed as a stiletto, perhaps
Gone in the past, your New York roots genial
But observant as a professor of the past in a genial
Mood bought through alcohol, not always, perhaps
Not as mirthless as a desert or stone, so
Rampant is the need for lightness, froth through beer
If only in the brain, distorted pose while standing,
Drinking, elbows of the raconteur, not passive.
The opposite of vocative is not always passive,
Nor are the cymbals of talk had through standing
Alone, but with company. There, Brian, beer or no beer,
You were without peer, as if learnedness, a Ph.D. so
Unambitious could get you loved, possibly, perhaps,
But you said: “I’m not marriageable.” Still genial,
As if an aura of bachelor knighthood was your genial
Flag, no misogyny intended, you remained perhaps
The embodiment of time concealed, not yet forty, so
Unconcerned with time passing, not a reader, the beer
Of career goals – you were indifferent, as if standing
At the bar, reconciling the past could remake the passive,
The instance, now that your dissertation left passive,
Undecided, “an open question” – sitting or standing,
With a bloody mary or hops distilled as expensive beer,
The wraparound of years when I first knew you, so
Elemental in manner, undisturbed, I thought, perhaps
Keeping close to one’s home was more congenial.
Two weeks ago, was it, perhaps three, the genus of time
So forgotten, beer or wine, sitting, standing, hardly passive –
& then your heart expired in hospital, Wednesday evening last.
James Naiden’s third novel, The Chafings of Mortals, was published in 2011. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a regular reviewer for IS&T.