Coyote Graveyard NoHo: Homeless Shelter Epic Poem Memoir

By Richard Del Connor, Buddha Zhen, Buddha Z

This is an epic poem.  As soon as I find all the accumulated pages from many months of my one year stay at the North Hollywood Homeless Shelter I’ll do a word count.  I need at least 10,000 words to call it, “an epic poem.”

NOTE:  Just did a work count: It’s over 17,000 words which includes some descriptions and photograph captions.  So it’s EPIC!



This poem represents my bewilderment of being trapped in the Coyote In A Graveyard rock opera I performed in 1984 and 1985 in Los Angeles night clubs.  Inspired by a failed romance and the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, this 1984 rock opera became a hit show and was heralded by Stephen Spielberg and Michael J. Fox who performed onstage with us. 

The original Coyote In A Graveyard rock opera story was written when I was homeless in 1984 on purpose.  I was working at LAX as a Union Carpenter and saved my money to launch my independent record label that year in September 1984 with the vinyl album titled "Temptation" by Richard O'Connor & The Rich. 

During those years from 1985 to 1987 I was a student in the UCLA film school and this rock opera became a screenplay for New World Pictures.  In the screenplay they asked me to rewrite the ending from a tragedy into a happier ending in which the drugged up hospital patients escape.

Then in 2018 I was hospitalized in the Martin Luther King Hospital in Compton, California and after 5 months of recuperation there was transferred to the NoHo Homeless Shelter of this Epic Poem story. 

I was supposed to only be in the shelter for "three weeks" and get my Section 8 housing subsidy but just like my 1984 rock opera it became apparent I was a captive because they were making a huge profit by keeping me there.  So eventually, I decided to be homeless and escape this shelter.

During the year I lived in the NoHo Homeless Shelter I was performing in nightclubs as the "Kung Fu Cowboy" playing my rock 'n' roll flute style that sounds similar to Jethro Tull. 

I was also performing libraries, book stores, coffee shops and theaters as "Richard Del Connor Philosopher Poet" in which I would perform a couple poems then conclude with a solo song on my flute.  This book includes some of the other poems I wrote and performed in 2018 and 2019.



So this book Coyote in a Graveyard NoHo Skid Row -- A Rock Opera Epic Poem Memoir documents my homeless life in a homeless shelter and performing two or three days a week trying to become a POET STAR WHO PLAYS FLUTE. 

Then in October 2019 I got a Section 8 apartment and the Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown ended my performance career. 

But now I've got a computer and here's my book.  

I hope you enjoy this view of homeless life and are inspired or enlightened by my insights and poetic criticisms.  I read at least 20 books per year and write a couple books each year... so now my goal is to publish these first 74 books I've written, then go back to performing as the Kung Fu Cowboy again.  I've released a few songs under my artist name, "Kung Fu Cowboy."  Check me out.  Buy my books.  Buy my albums. Cheer me on.  My next goal is to live in a house that I own.