Lynchpins | Robert Donohue

Twin Peaks is Why I Cut my Hair

*First appeared in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

“A writer” was the answer that I gave:
“Then you should write while you are getting stoned.”
Was his advice, and judging by the way
I dressed, and how I wore my hair, you could
See why. I was a hippie then, yet balked
At his suggestion, smoking weed was not
My thing, although I sampled it, of course,
But found I didn’t really like it much.
I was, however, into far-out stuff,
Like poetry and old philosophy,
So people wondered what I planned to do
For a career, that’s why he asked. As smart
As I could be, I struggled with health class
And with computer lab, and when I held
Onto my writing dream: “Like Stephen King?”
Would be the second chance he offered me,
But after having rebuffed smoking pot,
And shrugging off the name of Stephen King,
I would remain a mystery to him:
“Most people need a joint to be like you.”
He would concede. He was intelligent,
And went to a good school, where he would get
Busted for selling acid to the frats,
His out-look being more clear-eyed than mine.

Around this time there was a turning point
Which came from no place deeper than TV.
Twin Peaks premiered, and almost overnight
There was a change that everyone could feel:
Weird stuff was now okay, and I believed
That Special Agent Cooper was the coolest,
That poetry and old philosophy
Would be his things, but what I envied most
Would be his hair; I had to have his hair,
With hair like his then I could be a poet!
To get mine cut, I went to Joe the barber,
He sympathized with statements made with hair,
And of it went, my badge of hippiedom,
To be replaced with slickness and pomade.
This was my first time changing with the times,
As for my writing, you are reading this,
And for Twin Peaks, there was that second season,
And people went on thinking I was high
When I was not, no matter how I looked,
Yet this was still a moment, and was full
Of what bright promise any moment holds.

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Robert Donohue’s poetry has appeared in Amethyst Review, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others. He lives on Long Island, NY.