Boldt Words & Images: Gate of Ivory Gate of Horn (a poem revised)

(“Glad I was Chicago born”)

By Bob Boldt

[Editor’s Note: Earlier version appeared on November 16.]

For Deborah, whom I knew long before we met. A famous Yogi (I think it was Yogi Berra) once said, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.” What started out as a love poem to the past turned into a love poem to my ex-wife...To be read over music background:

It’s 1954. Dearborn and State. Gate of Horn Saturday night.

My best friend, Tom Clemens to my right, and to the left of me,
standing at the bar, Roger McGuinn¹.
I have no idea who he is, just another pair of ears listening:
                        “That old Bilbao moon,
                        I won’t forget it soon.
                        Just like a big balloon.”²

Eyes on Will Holt's pin-spot-lit face. Kurt Weill’s music.
Most only know of The Gate as an interesting side-bar to
Inside Llewyn Davis.³

I remember beersmelled black floors, red tables,
cigarette smoke pierced by the aforementioned pin-spot.

I didn’t know you then. At my revels you were in grade school barely as naive as me. I was 16 when you were 12, growing up through Kinsey and Kesey, Giacometti and Ginsberg. Quaint and lovely in retrospect, never having heard of Homer’s Gates of Horn and Ivory. You sneaking out of the house to New York to hear Ginsberg read. Me, catching Muddy at the Club DeLisa.

Even in ’68 we were leaders. Now we are elders.
Eyes are on the smoky pin-spot.
Ears listening to our song
even if we don’t always remember the text.

                        “That old Bilbao moon
                        would rise above the dune
                        While Tony’s Beach Saloon
                        rocked with an old-time tune.”²

---

1. Roger McGuinn:

2. Lyrics quoted from the “Bilbao-Song,” from Kurt Weill’s three-act musical comedy, Happy End.
    Lotte Lenya sings the “Bilbao-Song”:

3. This video pretty well sums up the Gate:

Copyright © 2019 by Bob Boldt