Poem by Rick Lupert

I Am From Ork
for Robin Williams
By Rick Lupert

Here’s to the crazy one the one
on the red jump suit
the one from the other planet.

Here’s to the one who was in my heart
since i knew what TV was.
The one whose recorded words
lived in my house on magnetic tape
since I knew you could purchase recorded words
with your own money.

Here’s to the laughter
the man whose zillion words a minute mind
made me a student of comedy
made me hurt like only funny can
made me and a lost generation
fall in love with poetry.

Long before Dead Poet’s Society
there was your Martian haiku.

Here’s to the generation who knew you as the genie.
Here’s to the one who discovered you as the voice of Vietnam.
Here’s to the one who found their Teddy Roosevelt
Here’s to the generation who Naknew you …

You could be anyone you wanted and
we had no problem believing it.

Remember when your best friend
gave you an Oscar?

Remember when you picked a scarf
out of James Lipton’s audience and
did twenty minutes with it?
Unrehearsed, a mind constantly making art.
Who needs an act when you’re you?

Here’s to you Robin,
head number one on the
Mount Rushmore of laughter.

I hope they bury you upside-down.
I’m going to let my body heal from
decades of side splitting.

I suspect
you’ve left a permanent mark.
Today we are all from Ork

Rick Lupert, a two-time Pushcart nominee, has been involved with L.A. poetry since 1990. He is the recipient of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center’s Distinguished Service Award for 2014. He created a the Poetry Super Highway and hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading since 1994 until just recently. He’s authored 16 collections of poetry, including The Gettysburg Undress and Nothing in New England is New, and edited the anthologies Ekphrastia Gone Wild, A Poet’s Haggadah and the Noir anthology The Night Goes on All Night. He is regularly featured at venues throughout Southern California.