July 21, 1930—Feb. 23, 2010

David Xavier Sharpe, a Korean War veteran, poet and classic bartender, died Feb. 23 in Veterans Administration Medical Center after a long illness. He was 79. Born in Canton, Ohio, Mr. Sharpe grew up in Angola, his father’s birthplace. He attended Marietta College in Ohio and became a sportswriter for the Marietta Times and the Parkersburg News, just across the Ohio River in West Virginia. After joining the Marine Corps, he was a front line correspondent for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea. He received numerous citations for reporting under enemy fire and extreme cold that left him frostbitten. In one letter of commendation, Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith, commander of the 1st Marine Division, praised the young corporal’s “complete disregard for his own personal safety and fatigue” in pursuit of “colorful feature stories often written under most adverse conditions.” His example “served as an inspiration for all who observed him,” Smith wrote. On returning to Western New York, Mr. Sharpe became a bartender at Laughlin’s at Franklin and West Tupper streets, which was legendary for its madcap atmosphere and colorful customers. His later writing and poetry reflected the scene at the Buffalo saloon, which he considered a “microcosm where life had been crammed and packed and celebrated in about 500 square feet.” Mr. Sharpe moved to New York City, where his bartending legend soared. He was a frequent guest on David Susskind’s “Open End” television talk program and was featured and quoted in city newspapers and magazines. Dolores Cannata

In the late 1960s Mr. Sharpe traveled to the Lagos-Algarve region of Portugal, where he opened a restaurant, Godot’s, in the Mediterranean seaside village of Praia da Luz. As its reputation grew, the American-style bistro attracted jet-setters from the United States and Europe. But several years later, Portugal’s political climate grew uncertain, and he returned to New York City, where he took his place behind the bar at Bradley’s, an elegant jazz club on University Place. Mr. Sharpe’s return to the Manhattan bar scene after a seven-year hiatus was heralded by the Village Voice as “like having Joe DiMaggio back in center field.” Following Bradley’s, Mr. Sharpe tended bar for 18 years at the Corner Bistro in the West Village. He spent his retirement in Buffalo, writing and occasionally reading his poetry in public. Mr. Sharpe “was one of the most engaging storytellers I have ever encountered,” someone “able to relate poignant, humorous and heartfelt tales of human encounters,” said William Baker, his close friend. Mr. Sharpe “was never the central figure of those stories, so the listener had no idea of his own fantastic adventures or personal accomplishments,” Mr. Baker added. “For those lucky few of us who really knew David,” he said, “it was a privilege to read his lyrical poetry, share his exploits and count him as a loyal and generous friend.” Mr. Sharpe is survived by a brother, Dr. William D. His life will be celebrated at a time and place to be announced. —Tom Buckham

I Did Not Know

I did not know a mouthcould be a sun

to warm cold psychic archipelagoes,and dumb of this,

I bricked my bloody-knuckled, frail asylum.

A hand, to me, had never beena pilot to

quiet, clean, bright-birded shoals,and, wary of one,

I did not tear my tetherin my desert.

I’d forgotten loving thighsare a cathedral,

I had not known a lookcould be a home

and true track through the mists.Shored up to this, my furies

pressed my leavings.

I forgot that tiny sunsure things must grow.

And then she marked my sun,and made me whole.

If, in the many holdings,I have hurt you,

If, in the many weepings,you have bled,

I could not chance the phantomsfrom our lovings,

I cannot purge the demons from our bed.

When, in the days to comeI come to leave you,

And leave I will,’forsaking common sense,

Please understand I neverunderstood you.

You, or the height you builtyour tender fence.

Your rock is deep in Chase Manhattan,caressed by prayer and suitable insurance.

Those who no longer sing the gloriesof the missal do get solace

from their Wall Street Journal –the One-And-Only

Red-White-And-BlueTrue-Journal.

Why – in hell – do we miss you so muchwhen you are with us?

The strong still do what they can,the weak still suffer what they must.

Sorrow’s abyss remains,And the martyr’s spit.

They have made of you an idiot Prometheus,Returned to earth

without the fires of Dogma.

They do not know wood’s wonders,or the calm of calloused hands.

They have made a thing of beautya toy, forever.

A Litany to Ziegfeld’s Jesus

Eternal, dust-cased,harbored infant, lastingly free

from Freudian complex,how jealously they’ve brought you

to us.How soon stained glass gives way

to neon thornsand AMF.

How soon scholastics schism on whether youcould bowl 300 on your houses’electronic alleys.

A pity you were Jewishand a protestant.

Some precincts are, even now, unawareof the One-And-Only,Red-White-And-BlueTrueChurch.

I.H.S. has gone with the Latinists.We have retained B

IN

GO.

If the humility of Cadillacsescapes you, you are less alone

than usual.Verily, your apostles have gone out

into the worldand cornered real estateand outlawed orgasms.

You have been remarketed.Not restrung, as Dostoevsky had it….You get your pap inside your dust-casebut you’ve been had:

for thirty papal knighthoodsand a car raffle.

American Flyers(as seen from Carveiro, Portugal)

In July, sometime agoin a seaside Portuguese tabernain a little fishing villageof smells of slat and fish and medronhaand sage and new-sawn cork

Bravo and I watched minnows nibble our bare feet.

watched the Portuguese moon rise,dinosaurian, huge,

up from the sequined shawl ofthe prisoned sea.

Under the bar roof,Under the garlic chandeliers,

in other century’s silencesa worn television

with spidery antennasoft-spewed excitationlike the futbol,a key of sound.

The pescadores, the fisherman,huge-handed as quarterbackswatched wordlessly,

squinting up at the set that told themmen played on the moon.

Their moon.

Bravo says he’s spoken with the estrangeiro, the Americano,the American stranger.I have said this is true.

These men are up thereon their moon.

They stalkedto the still shore

and studied, now,the three of them,their moon,hand-browed eyes, Mohicans,planetary smoke.

Back to the tiny, tinny television,

and back from beneath its roof.Five strides to the shore.Look up now,constellations rocking,old night-guide stars askewed,nearing, like quiet trains.

Faded sailors’ eyessearched the pocked scape.

Drinks in all our drunken hands,mystery, presencing afar.

The head man, Pedro,bent from his waist,

scooped sea in his handand sipped.

salt soup.

Soon, he said, the tuna run again.They have backs like bulls,

the tuna,Slippery, small, strong bulls

they are,the tuna.Hah! he said, that is true.

I’ve come here alone.I’ve not known what to do with life,not even how to live it.

Yet, scathing, lashing other menI know the truth that thisIn not enough,never enough.

Minutes passed,some way,we watched him,the chefe.

He turned from his sea.He shook his head, fiercely,

no! no!trouble, a bubble of new sad thought.I’ve brought.And ankle-deep in this bay

of his seven seas,of his drowned compadresand his gypsy fish

his eyes flash as the seas flashin this damp light.

“My moon,” he said, “sons of whores.

Life is a shark. This is a fact of life.”

His back, now,is to his risen moon,

his face is dim,he’s still, nowsighs,faces, mano a mano, me,

“But you Americans.Now you sniff my ass.

But I know.”

He throws arms skyward.he hurls a handat his dimming world.

“You Americans.You eat the world.Now, you eat the sky.You eat too much, you Americans.

You are full of shit.”

On Sophocles’ Pronouncement

“Of all the wonders of the earth, there is no wonder wilder than men.”

I have walked through probablynegligible fallout

through the merchandizing lies andthe anger of your bookstalls.And I have dodged your chromium

automotive scalpsin filthy snow and bones and excrement and bloodin the cities,

where you prize your usurersand you cage your eagles,

and fingered for the nerve that splays yourspastic fists.

I’ve seen your limpid gritted lamps, burning,like eating leaves on your cities’

lonely depths and lonely heightsand felt their glowings

on the prism of myselfand walked for ways into your prison.

I’ve watched the pallid, vaulted menpack their amulets with coinsagainst the cold.

I’ve heard the slides of painters’ sable brushesand poets, too,

with feathers in their hair,and heard gutgroans

of silver heaving love.

I’ve touched shy hands of factory girlsupon me,

hands broken and worn as a seacoast,but mute.

And I changed when their tears did not change me.

laughlin talkin

calhoun and i went up to townto watch the gin flowers bloomingdonleavy sez its all a farceit’s pops they’re up to pruning.

when joyce, he met the ginger manhe looked at him with ire.donleavy shrieked on sidelines,“old popsie’s all afire!”

now toilets come and toilets go,yet joe and pops remain here.they’re tests for puritans, you know,for who can stand the pain here.

on, sebastian, cop the booze,on, sebastian, purge us.and, sebastian, if you can’t,why, georgie can liturge us.

a blind ulysses tapped my door.i told him go a-running.bloom’d been ideed by young calhoun.now all’d come a-running.

on sebastian, wail away,give them no relaxing, try themsore as pops trys bloom,with all his sad exlaxing.

That Year

Up from the drunken numbness,with riven face, where the dunegrasssawed his sleep, he staggered seaward,

cringing from the shrapnel of his deeds.green bile on white sandseeking O’Neill’s footprintsin tonsured Cape Cod beaches.

unkept promises,childhood toys with button eyes,and fields he’d never walk in,

half-mad, half-dead, and damned,with vomit in his beard

he sangof the lovelessness of doom.

Birds Have Cages

Birds have cages,I have me.

But asworms are butterfliesI’m, too, she.

Rains have rivers,rivers, sea.

Quiet, strong,rollin’along,

My sea’s she.

In The County of Men’s Souls

I think thatIn the country of men’s souls

there is a Ganges.And beneath his fatal clouds, man knows,

when he is brave,he is born free, but becomes too soon afraid.And that in fear he martyrs men

and thus survives a timebefore he dies, to findthey live.

Stricken and sore with his brambles,impatient of his labors

and unfaithful to his gods,he shrieks too much, that he will not weep.He flails, that he will not see.

Man walks his wary motleythrough the loams of spirits’ shadingstoward the next hill, or the next well

wanting, ever,to palm, and touch,to rub, and hold, and feel,

to physically collect.

So, chained to clever cynics’ tombs,he courts the wonders,and a birthing.

And, in the country of men’s souls there is a Ganges.

And the headwagand the incantation, lachrymose,

and here you sit.”(sotto voce)“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”BANGand the goddam fist on thebar and I’m awake in the boozysea with this hydra.

I like to drink.He tells me of women I’m ruining.I’m drinking.

He’s writing a story about me.I’m bad.

Love Is Not All

Love is not all; it is not meatnor drink, nor shelter

nor a roof against the rain.Nor yet a floating spar

to men who sink and rise and sink again.Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,nor cleanse the blood,nor set the fractured bone.Yet many a man is making friends with death,even as I speak,for lack of love alone.It well may be that in some distant hour,pinned down by pain and moaning for release,driven by want of past resolution’s powerI might be tempted to sell my soul for peace,or trade the memory of this night for food.It well may be.I do not think I would.

Does It Matter?

Does it matter? – losing your legs?For people will always be kind,And you need not show that you mindWhen the others come after huntingTo gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? – losing your sight?...There’s such a splendid work for the blind;And people will always be kind,As you sit on the terrace rememberingAnd turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? - those dreams from the pit? …You can drink and forget and be glad,And people won’t say that you’re mad;For they’ll know you’ve fought for your countryAn no one will worry a bit.

Dandy, Just Dandy

A guy I know,unscrewed for many years (at both

ends of the spine)keeps cryingwhile I try to drink.

He is a criticand a literary man;a Christian line-seeker.

A Thesaurus of honesty,a makepiece scholar,a man of Goodwill Industries. Inc.

(He wants to travel, back and forth.)He fucks me up.Among others, me.

I should read more Salinger.Or Donne.

Awake in dark roomsI see his bent and sweaty head

as he saloonstops, tweedily,coveting my pocket paperspointed, awaiting poesiesand welfare checks.

“Comics? Comics are trash, buddy!”His briefcase breathes in the corner

calvingunder the Miller’s sign.I want to get drunkbut I sense him.“BEST POET IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SINCE SHAKESPEARE,

BUDDY!!!!”

Bedtime Story

The little bastard girl(and nuns have a way of knowing)kept calling for her crayons.

So Sister Grace said, “Draw a field.”(A tidied lawn with a single weed.)Then, “Draw a house.”(A great house, windowless.)So, “Draw the sky.”(A clean blue sky, with a black sun.)Well! And afraid she’d draw a female popethey deemed her “odd”and took her crayons away“Till another day.”But anyway,now she knowswhy everybody dies.

The Vineyard

He dug for unknown samplesin the tidepools of his lives.

Brown summer seaside pastures,growing sheepheards watched his wanderings

with the little calico dog.

He came to the dry graves then,stones gray in the gold lightand knowing of the aging, he,

as the little dog, turned home.

Thunder Bay

In shadowed, softing lakeside evening,Thinking of Tiresias, and rejected by dumb phones of Thunder

Bay

He lay there empty.Desolate as a gutted houseKilling gods and flies,

And trying to believe Walt Whitman.

He saw the mating gulls in high, still-sunlit airbefore he heard them.He watched, his hand blocking the sunon his upturned face, thinking of her,seeing the gulls, and the pitch and the roll,The long amazing dive

to skip like wondrous pebbles together down the mirrorlake.

Standing now to plead his prescience,Straining his eyes at their disappearance.

Then, looking down, he saw sad prophylacticsand godchildren. But most of alla sad abacus with gelid arms and greenwhite bellylolling his wingless body in a safe and shallow depthand saw, despite his dreams, himself theresplashing, pitiably splashing.

Childlessly, matelessly, sterilely, witlessly,tweaking the incoming wavelets,

alone.

Wonju

You, who do not know what hurt is,listen,

as you lie tonight,on the rotting springs beneath you,

listen,while trolleys wait in canyon barns of light

by city streets,wait for tomorrow.Listen, for chaos is crossing Balboa’s ocean

In a blue hearse;and the sunshine sparksshould itch in your scalp now.Hear hurt talk

in the brittle qulches of mocking painlike the beauty of moonlight

on a pretty face,so you’ll know what red hurt is.Not sunset sadness nor even hopeless corpuscles crystallizing in the dry gold dust of noon,

but the man who gags in angerat his mother’s God.

Hurt in the world of soft fleshand hot cast metal

killing blue organs pumping glorias in the sepulcher of geography

God forgotand stepped on

by a dead man the day after that.Hurt where war is.

Listen to the rising, rustling shell.You can hear its snout

nuzzling toward the caverns; but only for the gaspbefore the prayer,before it bursts and dead men’s dimples wrinkle roadways to your bedding.

Even those ordained as God’s menare impallored by its ills.

Hurt is rustling ravelled cassocksamong the hunchback hills.

Great searching redfogged fingerspoke the warland with infection,

leaving trembling, ugly chancres,filled with starkand static hairs of men instark and static fear.

We whisper, “look for Beauty,”In the din they cannot hear it.We advise them death is ugly,But in dark they do not fear it.We counsel, “Graves are cold, son,”But the distance only smears itTo a twisted “Brave and bold son,”Guillotining tortured spirit.

So, listen.Put your ear to the airborne track

up in God’s landover you, above the rule

of death and the stenchesof mortality.

Sit for eons right theretrembling on

excitement’s palsied knee,and listen.

Hurt’s song is slicing wormworldsin ascent.

You, who do not knowwhat hurt is.

Youare it.