Time That I'Ll Keep Poem by gershon hepner

TIME THAT I’LL KEEP


The time that I’ll keep
most close to my heart
is with you when we sleep
together. Apart,
there isn’t a time
I’d not rather be
with you, perfect rhyme
for the free verse in me.

To make up the loss
of the time without you
in our bed, I would cross
any line. No taboo
can stop me from moving
towards you, more speedy
than bullets, removing
my need to be needy.

There isn’t a train
or a bus or a car
or a boat or a plane
that can take me as far
and as fast as my loving
brings me to your view,
like a hare, turtledoving,
screen-tested by you.
Written in part while watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama with Linda, and inspired in part by an article by Stephen Holden on the four-minute black-and-white screen tests filmed by Andy Warhol, accompanied by songs that included Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” (“For Warhol Visitors and Would-Be Superstars,4 Minutes of Mystique, ” NYT, January 20,2009) :
When the aging silent screen legend Norma Desmond boasted, “We had faces, ” in “Sunset Boulevard, ” her haughty claim for the superior physiognomy of movie stars before the talkies, she had not reckoned on Andy Warhol. His well-known but seldom-seen screen tests, filmed in the Silver Factory in the mid-1960s, rebooted the mystique of Hollywood’s silent era and transposed it to the art world… A baker’s dozen of those four-minute black-and-white films, made without sound, were shown accompanied by live music at the Allen Room on Saturday evening as part of “13 Most Beautiful, ” a multimedia program in Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. Filmed by a stationary 16-millimeter camera, these portraits, with their stark light and shadow, are, in a word, mesmerizing. Talk about the tyranny of the image: these screen tests, chosen out of 300 and projected on a large screen overhanging the stage, rendered songs, most of them composed by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (alumni of the group Luna) , almost incidental. Some themes were instrumental. Others, sung by Mr. Wareham (who played guitars) and Ms. Phillips (bass and keyboards) in chilly, affectless voices, obliquely related to the lives of the subjects, some famous and others not. Outside songs included Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” for the screen test of a peevish, impatient, rapturously beautiful Nico, for whom Mr. Dylan is rumored to have written it; and the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore, ” for Lou Reed, glowering through sunglasses and consuming a bottle of Coca-Cola, which he displays to the camera like a pitchman.


I'll Keep It With Mine
You will search, babe,
At any cost.
But how long, babe,
Can you search for what's not lost?
Ev'rybody will help you,
Some people are very kind.
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.
I can't help it
If you might think I'm odd,
If I say I'm not loving you for what you are
But for what you're not.
Everybody will help you
Discover what you set out to find.
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.
The train leaves
At half past ten,
But it'll be back tomorrow,
Same time again.
The conductor he's weary,
He's still stuck on the line.
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.

1/20/08