TOM CLARK: On the Low Wire: Two Fantasy Poems: Larry Fagin (1937-2017): Occasional Poem / I fell in love at Safeway in Paradise

Larry Fagin (31 July 1937-27 May 2017): Occasional Poem, 1966

Larry Fagin and I met and became friends in 1966, when Larry was living in the UK as an "attached dependent" near a US air base where his father, an officer in USAF HQ South Ruislip, Bucks., was stationed. At the time I was living in Brightlingsea, a small fishing village on the North Sea. I was editing magazines in those days, and Larry had seen those magazines. He had passed through the shadow of the San Francisco poetry scene, dominated at the time by the dire influence of Jack Spicer. The Spicer tone of ironic bitterness was a Thing. At the same time the New York School was also a Thing, and Larry was just discovering it. The illusion of nonstop madcap fun in the Ted 'n Ron downtown NY scene attracted him mightily -- I suspected it was working for him as a kind of homeopathic cure / exorcism. In any case he quickly bought the program, swallowed hook, line, and was sinking deeply into the period style, from far away, in a situation that could hardly have been more unlike the Lower East Side, when we began to meet up in London.

His day trips were brief and specific. A bit of poetry fun. Train back to the base, after, à la Cinderella. Life at the base, as I came to understand, was quite comfortable for the American military personnel and their dependents, everything laid on, all the comforts of home, but considerably cheaper. Larry was playing a lot of spinner baseball, eating a lot of Hostess Twinkies, and imagining himself in the midst of a New York City he knew nothing about. His college credits, such as they were, had been earned through US military extension courses from the University of Maryland. Like many other people I knew in those years who were children of the military, he had moved from place to place, base to base, so that his true home was not any particular place in the US, but the military.

His one memorable poem of these years was "Occasional Poem", a fantasy account of a trip with Tom Clark to Greenwich. The trip never happened. Larry was just namedropping, there. "Tom Clark" was obviously not as good as "Ted and Ron", but it was as close as Larry was able to get, at that juncture. I found the joke pretty funny. Everything he said he did, in that poem, I'm pretty sure he did do, in some fashion, and I did not.

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich: photo by Otama, 12 January 2013

I was mildly disappointed, to be truthful, that Larry never attempted to write about life around the base. Maybe he was a bit embarrassed about it. But having now studied the reminiscences of others who were living there at the time, I conclude that the material would have been interesting enough. Here for example is a bit of random testimony: "I was stationed at South Ruislip in 66-68. I was assigned to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) District Office #12. My duties included conducting background investigations on English gals marrying American GI's. My bosses were Lt Col James Poynor and Lt Col Isiah Sigman. Remember going to the Playboy Club frequently. Our Hq in Washington DC always wanted to know what was happening in London. The Play Boy Club was the place to find out what's happening. If I sent in 5 EEI's (Essential Elements of Information) a month, my bar tab was paid for by the Air Force."

This account by a local English lass offers an interesting mirroring from "the other side":

"I grew up just down the rd from the Air base and later my Secondary school was built opposite the base Where Currys Electronics store etc now stand. Queensmead School is where the bus stop was, where we would wait for the GI's to go to their rented homes away from home in Harrow etc. We would say cheekily to The Americans, 'Got any gum chum'. As our parents thought this was scrounging, we could not go home chewing our ill gotten gum.

"As pre teen kids we would take our 'Guy Fawkes' effigy to the bus stop to catch the GI's going home. 'Penny for the Guy'. We'd ask/beg (depending how a person looked at the tradition) for money. The week leading up to Nov 5th, we would tell the GI's, the effigy would be burnt on a bonfire we'd build. Then we would give a brief history of Guy Fawkes and the attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Our sister in a sack, dressed up as Guy Fawkes, being pushed about in a child's push chair, decided to stand up. The American lady who had been listening intently, yelled and jumped backwards. My poor sister being uncomfortable had to stand up to stretch out her long legs and had no idea she would frighten the lady so much. Janice was around 7 yrs old. I think Janice jumped with just as much fright, when the woman yelled out.

"Somewhere around the back area of the old site where the base stood, there is a rd leading to the local council waste/recycle dump. I went there with my dad in 2000 to dump stuff he was clearing out from his stables. I know that there was a Baseball pitch somewhere back there through the tunnel, under the central train line that went to and from London. Steam trains used to travel that route also. As kids we would squash pennies on the line as the train passed over them. We would Bird nest also in that area (look not touch) we would have to run every so often when the Air police saw us back there."

There were, in the neighborhood, entertainments galore available to overseas military and their families. Larry could have stopped closer to base, skipped the New York School, and enjoyed great (?) shows like this one.

Brenda Larenty, Low Wire, Jimmy Chipperfields Circus 1979, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK: photo by SJM_1974, April 1979

Brenda Larenty, Aerialist, Jimmy Chipperfields Circus 1979, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK: photo by SJM_1974, April 1979

David Hibling, Chimps Jimmy Chipperfields Circus 1979, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK: photo by SJM_1974, April 1979

Rochelle Flyers, Flying Trapeze, Jimmy Chipperfields Circus 1979, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK: photo by SJM_1974, April 1979

Rochelle Flyers, Flying Trapeze, Jimmy Chipperfields Circus 1979, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK: photo by SJM_1974, April 1979

Duo Roche, Aerial Cradle, Jimmy Chipperfields Circus 1979, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK: photo by SJM_1974, April 1979

@realDonaldTrump and First Lady Melania Trump greet U.S. troops at Naval Air Station Sigonella before departing Sicily for Washington DC.: image via Stephen Crowley @Stcrow, 27 May 2017