Michael Bishop’s Elegy for Philip K. Dick
Michael Bishop’s Elegy for Phil Philip K. Dick is dead, a Lass with dark hair said. Her tears flowed wholesale, remember? Phil wrote like a relentless dentist, drilling the pocked enamel of reality to expose its beautiful decay. Midway through the wood he popped fish-shaped paranoia pills, chewed the holy fat of messianic redemption, & chased the godly lot with pot after pot of hot black coffee, all of it decanted from percolators whoop- whoop-whooping their projective derangements. Beer furred his tongue. Mars floated mauve in his eyeballs. The smell of ozone-depleting aerosols wafted from his armpits, ubiquitously. When Anwar Sadat died, he scarred himself with a can of Orange Crush in spontaneous homage. He took courage when Linda Ronstadt sang “Different Drum” & no bleak umbrage if a buddy crooned “Una cosa me da risa – Pancho Villa sin camisa.” He was fully sane in Berkeley, Fullerton, & Santa Ana. He was crazy in California. Kafka had no...