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Henry
Clausen, Ex-Wrestler and
Seller of Books, Used and Rare
He commands from shop's stern,
a grizzled aging Viking,
slim, compact, eyes that probe
each subject with Nordic care.
He repastes a binding: 'Careless fools!'
No salesman: a go-between
for readers and their chosen lands;
he sweeps an occult lady
with baleful eye as he counts
change from a cigar-box register.
He could go top-deck with yarns
to drag applause from Beowulf himself,
how he wrestled monsters for years:
Mareduke, the Trenton Killer,
Sin Fang Yu, the Chinese torturer.
Or he could brag, out of style,
about his blond Iseult, their clan
of Norseman. But, no, he keeps
his lonely helm, engrossed
to chart mind's course in drift
through currents and tides of books,
a side-long glance once in awhile
at crowds constant as waves
on endless journeys out there.
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The MacDowell Poems
by R. D.
(Dean) Lakin
(Francestown,
N.H.), 1977
Typographeum
a
collection of 22 poems, composed by
the author while in residence at the
MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, N.H.
published
in a limited edition
of 150 copies, each especially
signed and numbered by the poet.
Twenty-five of these are numbered
I - XXV, for presentation.
Deo Gratias.
____________________
the
poem reprinted here
is done so with the kind permission of
the author's wife,
Professor Emeritus Barbara Lakin,
Colorado State University
Fort Collins
_____________________
Dean
Lakin passed away
on Labor Day, 1998, at age 67.
I remember him as a kind, gentle
and thoughtful soul.
A poet, scholar, and friend of
uncommon generosity,
whose spirit inhabits
the hearts and minds of
his friends, family and poets everywhere.
His words, written for friend and
fellow bibliophile Henry Clausen,
reveal kindred spirits, who
together again in another place,
share their love for books.
- Doug Clausen
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