A St. Louis Poet
My father, the late John Rolens, was a poet from St. Louis, Missouri. In 2009 he published Speaking With A Broken Mirror, a book of poetry that reflects, as he would put it, “the things ignored or forgotten that connects us, and invites us to feel the rhythm of a pervasive spirit.” In 2003 after the death of his wife I wanted to put together a short photo documentation of him. This a small vignette capturing his essence as a poet and deep-thinking philosopher. Accompanied with the photos is a poem encapsulating some of his spirit. The original photographic format is 35mm black and white film.
Down The Mississippi
Revelation (I’ve had only one)
is the sudden appearance of
a truth you have known
even before your birth.
It is a chromosome
woven into the DNA of
some endless oversoul.
Sitting on the Missouri River levee,
just above the Mississippi,
I plucked my righteous thought
from a small piece of drift wood
white and bouncing
like a marshmallow
in an endless stream of
spiced chai tea.
I inhaled the pungent fragrance
of that sweet inspiration
just as a spank-assed babe
sucks in life.
The first exhale of this new life -
“You have a God given
Right to Sin….”
I will follow this murky current to
New Orleans.