Who Will Remember Me?—a spoken word poem by James Navé

Let's break down this story. I belong to those who believe small gods call out to lizards with wings. Who can remember 20 years ago? How do you know those you've forgotten still live? A man told me last night he had died in another lifetime because he jumped off a cliff to keep the Romans from killing him—some kind of religious thing, many, many centuries ago. I told him I'd never experienced a past life. I said all life is one, as far as I was concerned—a continuous roll across the void at home and nothing. He had his story; I had mine. And then Bill Fundaberg's story—Bill died in the East Village during the Aids crisis. Oh, Bill Funderburg, we loved him; he could have been Andy Warhol in another life; he had one of those long-stem cigarette holders that he put his camel in, or his Marlboro or whatever cigarette he smoked. And he walked around staring up the sky, peering into the trees, puffing his cigarette. After he died, that news didn't come back to me for many years. When I last heard the news, it was a long time ago, and somebody told me his teeth were on a shrine in Phuket, Thailand. All praise to the land of the Buddha—the butterflies came—gold wings, Hungry for beauty—nothing boring about butterflies and dreams. And then there are those who wait for buses across the street, from the bar to Marché in Paris, where people lean on walls in the uncertainty of casual time. Oh, hungry, complacency; why do the fairies lie so much? Can you tell me that? Why do the fairies lie so much? How come the first position blesses the robin's eggs before I can break open? She said she hated pink. Oh, my. Bill Funderburg loved pink. I love wizards. At The Bar du Marché, you can do nothing, absolutely nothing. It's okay. Surie waves at the people who go by—serves and drinks‚—waves at them again. I've been going there for years—maybe 40 years. Will I soon disappear? Will I soon find the bus, the bus I've been waiting for for a long, long time? Who will remember me when I'm gone?