Pygmalion

He resurrected me.
He was the Thin White Duke
flooded in light.
I was a fly on the wall.

We were all pretty bad
but he was viable.
Worldly.
Like Henry Higgins:

He subsumed me.
I was a playground.
Lyrically. I tried
to encourage his worst impulses.

I was a fan. A hick from the sticks.
But he saw me:
Sometimes a modern beat.
Sometimes a Dostoyevsky character. Van Gogh.

We were seated on the floor of his apartment
over the auto parts store.
In Berlin.
Waiting for “Starsky and Hutch.”

He wrote:

            Beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep—
the Armed Forces Network call signal, a Motown beat—

on ukulele.

“Write something up,” he said.
More of a benefactor than a friend.
He went out of his way
to bestow good karma.

“Call it:
‘Lust for Life.’”

 

Source: “Resurrecting Iggy Pop” (Jon Pareles, Jan. 14, 2016, New York Times, p.C1)