A GANG OF SHORTYS

 

 

RELATIONSHIP

 

  In order to save the relationship

  We will never see each other again

 

 

LOVE POEMS

 

  I love poems

 

 

NIGHT FEARS

 

  Everyone is in love

  Except you

 

 

ONE WAY OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD

 

  That is no blackbird

  That is a window

  And a little tiny brick

 

 

HOW TO WAKE UP

 

  1. Go to sleep

 

 

10 THINGS I DO EVERY DAY

 

       Suicide

 

 

MY SHIRT

 

  I like to put it on

  My arms get long that way

 

 

GOO AHEAD

 

  Goo ahead

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

A JEW IN NEW YORK

 

 

Like everybody else, I wasn't a Jew

Until I came to New York. In Portland, OR,

The other day, a young Latina asked me

If I were Jewyorican. Papa and Bubby

Came from Ukraine, landed in Brooklyn,

Settled in Harlan, KY, and named my father

Benjamin Franklin. My mother, the offspring

Of a coalminer, married Ben, the only Jew

In town. He didn't last. Ma remarried.

In kindergarten, in Cincinnati, instead

Of moving to the afternoon session the second

 

Semester, I stayed in Morning and changed my name.

This is the year 5755. In Chinese it is Year

Of the Dog.I just learned that the time between

Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year’s)and Yom Kippur(Day

Of Atonement)are the Days of Awe. Moody and gray,

With dashes of absolute clarity, I love these days.

Cleansing summer's sweat from the streets of New York,

I always think of the Year beginning in September.

"That's when school starts." A holdover from Youth.

This year, for the first time I thought, woo,

It's the real New Year, and I am a real Jew.

A real Jew, and a real coalminer's son, too.

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

A LITERARY TOUR OF SAN FRANCISCO

          for Gary Glazner

 

 

Headless Buddha

 

First thought

Second thought

 

 

Dr. Williams Was Wrong

 

No ideas but in ideas

 

 

Labor Day

 

So much depends upon

who owns the wheel

barrow

 

And how much the chickens cost

 

 

Dominique

 

I'm so employed

I got a beeper

I shoulda brought a pen

 

 

At Trieste, for Jack Hirschman

 

If you see Kay

Tell her I kissed her once

 

 

Kimi at Trieste

 

You know me

I kissed you once

 

 

Jack, Still at Trieste, Quotes-His-Son's Haiku

 

John FitzGerald Ken

Nedy died on this day

22 syllables

 

 

Love-Hate Relationship

 

I love hate

 

 

 

Secret Panel

 

Anxious tourists stare at maps

After which, much relaxed

They put on sunglasses and get lost

 

 

Rose

 

Too much beauty slugs the tongue

It's time to change the canal

 

 

Glare

 

In the shitty hotel room

Thinking of the job you must get

Wind slips in music

 

 

The Bee

 

The gardener

 

 

Vagina

 

Enough enough

 

 

A Beautiful Present

 

Not that

The past

Was so bad

 

 

Rainy Day in North Beach

 

Laughing at the draining colors

Buried rhythms say tomorrow

 

 

Limo Limbo for Regie Cabico

 

Noblesse oblige in Plato's Cave

Faux concrete dived write in

 

 

Howl

 

We howled

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

DOTS

     (for Edwin Torres)

 

 

(All the below again, plus)

 

Finger tip scale

Sound in fingertips

 

 

 

 

 

    Piano On Street

Parked illegally
Everyone playing rainy
Night in New York City
10009

 

 

1. Video (get a tv & be on it)

2. Direct the one-person symphony orchestra

3. 3 tape recorders

4. A directs B

   B's movements begin to direct A
   A goes all the way out, B just reads a poem

   B gets A to stop, they become gestures only

 

 

Horvasi Torvasi meets Harry Chest

 

Per former - Stage hand

 

Horvasi, God's Gift to Himself

     He knows - everybody wants him

 

Some Little Thing Jan 8

We _- I me more -_

It's become this here

I'[ve grown from it

& I'm back to it

Thinkin out loud

Not makin (raw sewage/rainy season/regal stew)

Something, Some little thing

Representing CHANGE

In effect representing CHANGE

Being CHANGE -- we don't say

We are a house

or

We are a body

Going through changes

Not aware

We don't know until

Someone says

You're changing

I like what you're doing

Do me

 

1. Diving board

2. Spark plug

3. Collision

4. Balloon (Being blown up)

5. Warm bread

6. Rubber ball

7. Bell

8. Belt

9. Glasses (eye and drinking)

10. Socks

 

The Window and the Door

These two characters are always

Complaining about the draft

 

behind black poster board
in drag:

Drag King

 

I Lose Track of my Tangents

Not enough dots

I suffer from clarity 

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

FLORIDA

 

 

Clouds of anywhere

Only Florida all surround

Big toe of pleasure, tiny

Ringlets of multicolor droplets

Mixing delightful day-glo Shango

Clobbered strict sense with heat

A word dissolves on your tongue

Flowing sensate, this cool memory locks

An eternal kiss all over your body

Sweet raucous sashay raw song

Woman man song, the lapping of ocean

Into ocean, skin into skin

Into into into

Clouds of anywhere everywhere

Pink dawn over blue

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

FOR THE FORDS AND TWORKOV THE MOSKOWITZ

 

 

      On

The table

A bowl

Of fruit

 

 

 

     Without

Within

 

 

 

The Smell of Paint 

 

Quite noticeable

Yet they'd just been hanging

Around ince the baby

"Cannot keep quiet,"

Sighes image

A ribbon

Busily tying

Itself back

 

 

 

     One Bird

Too many

 

 

 

     Swirl

Rocking

In a rock

Cradle

 

 

     Looking @ Looking

Beyond or...into

The white shadow

Landscape of lime

And not a whole lot of time

Love luck money, in a single

Everything

Equals

The mishpukah sans face clamors

But darling they are out

Of the cage

Already

Jest standing around looking

For a coat rack to check

Everything

Is alright kind of slowly

So there is

Always

Enough

Time

 

     Which Way

Not this way

Clock on the floor

 

 

 

     Look Out

Your pants

 

 

 

     Bottle Signs

Baby baby where did you go

Nowhere stands still

Elaborate ease

With a twist

Of whatever

You say

 

 

 

     Piled High in the Corner

Could you file this

Kiss

 

 

 

     Calm

Goes up in smoke

Skates the ceiling

Calls for a glass

A solid glass glass

 

And when it doesn't come

Ring ring ring

Words themselves articulate

Form the meaning "I'll drink

To that" evaporation

 

 

 

     Connection

For there to be connection

Something must connect

To something

 

 

 

     Two Things

2 things connect

Connection is a third thing

But 1 + 1 + connection

The thing they make is

4

A family at sea in a sunset

 

 

     Beautifully Rowing a Green Line

Wake up and it is morning

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

IF I WERE TO THROW MY MONEY

 

 

If I were to throw all my money into anything

I'd throw my money into the Deaf community

If I were to throw all my money anywhere

I'd throw it into ASL

 

Because the future of the species is immune

To all the preaching and the silence

Of these moments is best spoken to

By the quietude of Far by far

 

Oh in the silence

You hear the heart drum

You hear the ear pull

Air towards hair

 

But in the gesture

Of the measure

Of the pasture

You are for sure

 

ASL'll lead you

Past the pasture

To the Gate where

You will hear

 

So take my money

Take my tongue

Take my breath

And see it fly

 

Listen to the Deaf Community

Listen to the Poetry

The whirr o' meaning

Coming up for air

 

Walk together to the riverside

Making small talk sign by sign

The body's speaking now, hush

Listen with ecstatic eyes

 

 

 

Looking for something????

 

Try

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

THE LOOK

 

 

Your flesh liquefies

Face dripping into your hands

As your eyes dissolve

Your skull locks into The Look

 

Bob Holman, still looking, ha ha!

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

LOU READS BOB FROM A MUSIC STAND

 

 

Foot of pride boots the mouth

from inside

a Mexican farmhouse with a red-tiled roof

 

Baillar twice it's all right

rescue from the tangled

in the midnight battle call

 

Un-monogamous

Eternal fidelity

High broke hip and knock knock knock

 

Propaganda all is phony

Give me a call 212-929-2125

I got nothing to live up to

 

Every mega needs a sore

The cops don't need you

and man they expect the same

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

NOW WHAT WHAT NOW

 

 

Scene 1, "Loss"

 

Begin

Again begin

Begin again

Again again

 

Begin

Again begin

Begin again

Again again

 

Begin

Again begin

Begin again

Again The End

 

The End

Again again

Begin The End

The End again

 

Not again

Why yes again

Begin again

But not the end

 

Begin

Again begin

Begin again

Again again

 

 

Scene 2, "Your Wish Is My Command"

 

If you only knew

What I knew

I know you would be true

You would be blue

 

If all I could say

Would simply betray

Then the clue on the shoe

Would say, "How do you do"

 

If on the other hand

My physique like a rubber band

Would bounce into the glue

You would still be blue, so very blue

 

 

 

A fountain of grainy visions

Blown into titanic omissions

If you knew what I knew

You'd have to come through

Cause you're one in a million

Waiting on the next to be next

To correct the text

 

On your knees, please

So glad you agree

To free

The key

 

 

Scene 3, "Bitch"

 

What do you say

When you say what you say

Do you mean it in some other way

 

Take the blame for being so mean

For meaning whatever you say you say

 

You and your so-called trope

Your brilliant calliope throat

Turn it around

Speak without sound

 

 

Scene 4, Home Improvement

 

Tear down the house, Louse

Build up the dream, Team

Can the plan, Saw the law

Goof the roof and temporarily

Out of service your damn jaw

And that is all and that is all

 

 

Scene 5, Recyclables

 

No SLAM but the assumption of SLAM

As the Street bruises Eden

Rack ruin of SLAM in toto

 

Articulate SLAM

SLAM rocket body nose into invisible shield

Book SLAMs shut on SLAMming eyelid

Mouth of SLAM, tonguing

SLAM's single utterance

SLAM the abstract note

SLAM the vacant stare

SLAM the multicolored carousel condom dispenser

SLAM the overture into the underground

Flip over, stand back, SLAM

All the Slim SLAM,

The Taming of the SLAM 

 

 

Scene 6, "Larry's Parry"

 

Filligrees that weave a road through fingers

All the blues' and yellows' gorgeous openings

Mr. I-forget-your-name, uh,

Excuse me, Miss, Miss uhhhhh

The tendrils do tend to tiff

Ah delirious moon, monstrous ecstatic and prolix

The compassionate SLAM

Existence SLAMs and the SLAM of Existence

Heaven's confining SLAM and SLAM and SLAM SLAM SLAM 

 

 

Scene 7, "Let's get to her."

 

Take me

Out to

The ball

Game take

Me out

To the

Crowd

 

 

Scene 8, "The Control Room"

 

She did she didn't

He hid the yabbit

The dabbit din didn't

Done it dad gam it

Refused the choicest news

Retracted the fracture

And featured the truculent fright

He did he didn't

Whatever would would would

Did did did

Now get out get out get out

Of here here here!

 

 

Scene 9, "In Retro"

 

Twang yr Magic Twanger, Froggy

We'd make bread balls

While watching the black and white test pattern

Peeling off the Bunny Bread crust

Balling the sponge-like soft pillow centers

Back into dough and gnawing bite in

While Mom slept in

Colonial Village, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1953

 

 

Scene 10, "Les Amin"

 

Ou est un?

Ou? Qui?

Qui est vous?

Vous etes tu? Ou non?

Oui, je pense je pense,

Mais en Paris!

C'est ca! Voila!

L'autre est dans Paris?

Texas? Je vous accuse de tomber dans amour.

Moi? C'est pas vrai! J'habite en Texas, Folle, Texas.

En France? Oui. OK?

Allo? Allo? Allo?

 

 

Scene 11, "Reruns, What about puns."

 

Please pay your fare, the county fair

The stated fair of fair play

The reporter was Tan, from the Sun

The Bull was dozing, the horse was flying

Meaning was very mean

The son of God shone upon the scene

 

 

Act 2, Scene 4

 

All is all is all

Not at all

 

 

 

Scene 12, "Sleepyhead"

 

Having completed the exegesis of Prof. Cannon's play,

She wrapped her legs around the 486 66 MHZ processor

Upgradeable to Pentium, w/ 8MB RAM

Expandable to 64, 420 MB hard drive, 2X CD ROM,

Soundblaster 16 Bit Stereo Sound Card with external speakers,

Local Bus Video w/ 1MB Video RAM,

4 Device bays and 5 slots,

14,400 Baud external modem, 

And fell asleep.

 

 

Scene 13, "The Investigation"

 

Under the swinging lightbulb

Under the sweating lightbulb

Under the swearing lightbulb

Under the blinding lightbulb

 

What do you do

What do you say

What do you think

What do you know

 

In the concrete cell

In the doorless hell

In the echoing bell

In the drowning swell

 

 

Scene 14, "The Sitting Room"

 

Listen to the kid that did what she said she did

Listen to the tale of the male in jail who failed to sail

Find the man with the plan to can the divan

Set off with a cough, return with the burn

And stop when you start to get too smart for the part

 

They never said the vic was dead

Made it up out of his head

Thinking is a crime?

Seems it is this time

Made it up, what a chump

And stuck it to the earth

The world's first onanistic birth

Sprung whole cloth and sailed off with his daughter

Laughter and poetry were the waves in the water

 

I aughta know

Cause I was she

And whoever hears these words

Made em up just like he

Said you had to do

To find a pathway through

The thickets of crickets to the new New

O hoist up a sail

To the tail of the tale

Cause the shinin blindin sun

And the wind on a run

And the fun's begun

To stun the shun

Keeps you going to the end of the End

 

 

Scene 15, "The Dungeon"

 

What do you mean,

Do you understand?

Appreciate the anti-words?

My, how the words flow like

Liquor over warts.

 

A leather lifetime ago,

In a beautiful city, we

Cried. I was lost but you found

Me. You did not spray my house

With chemicals during the night.

 

Now, love lies. The cell's view

Is of another cell's back. One to

One is the name, but you turn

On me, I am your dream, tied

To the wall, ball and chain. 

 

 

Scene 16, "Dumbarton Oaks"

 

When it's all over, what do you do?

When it's been forgotten, who knows what it was?

Now what? What now?

It's the only now I know.

 

You can print the money, God'll still

Spend it. I can't sit down.

I can't sit down, I gotta

Move move move

All around,

 

And when the sun sets and the moon rises,

And the people all begin to shout.

It's not the what it's the how, and how!

Did I tell you the one about about?

How relaxing in the calm of the evening.

Come lie to me and be my Love.

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

ON THIS FAILURE

 

 

I would as it were the beautiful page

Kind of bulk up, spill a gut, toss my father

To the side of the ring

 

Brother spares the time go by by

And as Elizabeth wouldn't say

And then again, hello Sun, forget it

 

I'm clearly zipping the hands together

Preparing for the longest of training runs

A tender shoots a tough tomato

 

Only the melting of ice, the creeping of saints

I'd guess a million? I was off by? A million and one?

Well, maybe the Slam dies and everyone relaxes from lack of Fear

 

Great -- negated the non-space. Micropresses urge

Themselves upon the pods of Thoth

I will eat the Lonely Beast

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

THE PERFECTION OF CHAOS

               for Ron Vawter

 

 

Silence covers space. Love covers loss.

All along the watchtower and all the way

To heaven there is always a way, directly beside

The way, Just below the way. That is the way.

Shadows deepen the lake, Death's frigid breath

Emerges. A quivering question, Life suddenly

Breaking, morning under the mountain. You just open

Your eyes, That's all. Or not.

                    Pain eases, erasers rubbing

Against themselves, shredding pink. Big nothing

Pillows, iron clouds, ice over everything. As if

Magic might replace Sense by Heart. We don't

Know anything and now it looks like a silhouette

Of a bird beating against a glass wall, the returning

Look failing, as everything truly turns blue.

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

PREFACE TO A REBIRTH ANNOUNCEMNENT HAIKU

                for Amiri Baraka, on

                birthday numero sesenta

 

 

Voice volcanoes

 

    

            Its way into ear atmosphere

             Tearing its way, screaming

            Hurling memory's fireball direct hit 

 

A little launch party, wiggling fannies into

Webbed and wickered launch furniture

Canape chatter void branch into capillarious

Brunch fresheners, mimosaesque fingerlings utterly modulated

Excuse me no excuse me no me me me

 

     Hurling a

          Launching a

          Do we we have lift off

Roger we jolly well got the goddamn lid popped off

The Circulation of the Universe

     Just in time   (When else?)

Back at you

 

Stand and Solo in Reality Part I.

Newark's tarry stand and reflective universe of vocal stars

No snag but the heartbreak of lies to keep the phoney wires jiggling

Collect call for Mr Baraka, do you accept the whoosh

Orange sax blue cornet silver bone

Filtering the coffee of resistance

Through the handset

               The Receiver

                    Ain't no Deceiver

 

Standing with your finger out

Standing with your finger out

Standing with your finger out

Wondering which way the world's gonna turn

 

Had a vision in a Voice see

Sat in a chair, started to rock

Air rocked and rocked see

The rock rocked

 

Where you get whipped like a whirl into into

The Voice might have been gentler

Might have been a superduper hero might've

But whipping wind leaves uproot the damn trees, Voice!

One musical moment

Where the Voice is the music not the transmitter

Dididididitdit static in the attic, shake the groans, Bones

Keep moving here, Get your feet off the bench there

Do what the damn sign says

Damn sign says Fuck You Brother

Fuck you

 

Now the voice lagoon-like deconstructs "like"

Into a myriad of flash fishes

Millions of tiny whispers gonna be the wind again

Tickle the whiskers off that cat

Wind-up time, hey

Pitcher delivers

 

I'd be a dancing fool in Stalin's basement

I'd take the Poundian contradictions and slam

That dunk, Punk

All the right nows of Etheridge Knight Night hey

Don't you mend the blend, it ain't ripped (yet)

Do not so and so and so it

 

Who the hell stays up all night anymore anyway

Delirious jazz night, tender paper and rugged artificiality of E-net existence

And children crawling up and down the Bannisters of Midnight

The little darlings, living model of evolution

What school they gonna go to to learn something

 

While behind and around

     Up over and through

          Through all the all

And down the hall

     The Voice is singing now

          A shadow song unlocking movement

Capillary action of sweet rough

     Flow the blow, go on to the Now now

          You and your fingers the separate but somehow

Cooperating fingers around the throat of music

Voice music pops a corpuscle's muscle

 

Deeper'n'deeper'n'deeper'n'deep

Voice, where you lead us?

The way out Way Out

Song itself sings itself

Flying over scorched earth

What school they gonna go to to learn something

This has been Preface to a Rebirth Announcement Haiku

Amen Amiri Amen

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

TSUNAMI!!!!

 

 

LOTS OF SPACE    LOTS OF WORDS

Lots of words fill up lots of space

Even space between words filled with other words in other Words, as under the wave the speed bump decays

Absolutely not to the octagon! Trans., Death woke me up this morning

Called me Bob but we're not I repeat not on first name's basis

I interrupted she interrupted the beautiful stirrup for the perfectly SHAPED (first use of "shape") heel rolling into place,

The wave looming uhoh

Two bad thistles look the other way, all tufted and parachutey, being no loonnggeerr interested in uh anything except the throniest (sic) Antilogic Nonsystems, unfolding of the linens. My agent preps the garden soul, thunder belies. Little Teenybop Loveskis Liltin Lollypoppaloosest 99 Stylee. Some moral fibers for breakfast.

 

A Morsel of Fact

:

When King Pundar handed his hairnet over to the the fabulous Grindel, George Washington was Black. An African American, some slave blood. Also some Native blood, and Martha had some Black in her too. Twist dials on the Fact Bank Britannica-ROM to "DNA." Add static to soundtrack: "Buzz tol' me the moon's a coal and lonely place, Bob, and the Earth's a seether. Buzz'd get lucid (and loose!) after about five or six lose count of those little blue mescal martini subs. But you can't tweak the Nose of Truth. History is no joke. More like a mock epic" or a tsunami at the laundromat.

 

Bbbbut, (whimpering now)...buy...but...which way should I twist it?

The dial so luminous, voracious, radiant. A chunk of plutonium. A time machine, past life channeler, a fork bender, a jar of smoke from Dostoyevsky's last cigar

Chuck Berry is stuck

Doin the rooster walk

Crowin his fuckin head off

The world's a motherfucking stage, Motherfucker

 

Hiding sex becomes more and more important as the millennium demands closure. The Recording Artist Formerly Known As Prince -- ah, hell, let's just say ex-Prince!....

"Billie Billie Billie!"  She'd curl the exclamation into a question

And say That's a poem

Still twisting the dial? Still twisting the night away.

Turn the clown's bulbous red schnoz until light goes off.

 

Lullabye, the world useta be sure it did

So what? Friends you useta have, too

The dusty road settles into itself

Whose dust are you?

 

Abe (Lincoln, formerly known as President) walks out on stage with Chuck Berry to wild acclaim. Chuck is shouting something as he does his famous "rooster walk." Let's see if we can get a direct feed from his last lungs, "This is the birth of rock'n'roll."

 

 

Within the cave of the wave

Whose dust are you?

Clarity and precision are my lovers, too

 

 

 

     (read below dotted line only if you dare

     (it is NOT PART OF POEM)

---------------------------------------------------

 

 

Lots of words fill up lots of space

Tons of words to blind, as in, the letters form word-like shapes

(first use of SHAPE) arrays of vowels and conant consonants

Even the space between words, separating them, actually forming them

Becomes filled with other words in other words

Letters link the string of words together, the necklace -- I shall get a stone for your necklace , Love -- becomes a solid strand

There are no bends in this river, my letter to you begins

And never ends, a single word spun out, a reel casting for bigger fish

Fish bigger than the whole ocean put together

The whole ocean is put together, innapropriately enough by the time we get

There it is an X

Water washes sun hangs out to dry

All the time cry cry into big blue bowl that is the sky

Send it up, Mr Helmetmeister, a sendup! Ah. The sky

As under the wave the speed bump decays

Absolutly not to the octagon, Death woke me up this morning

Called me Bob but we're not I repeat not on a first name basis

I interrupted she interrupted the beautiful stirrup for the perfectly SHAPED (first use of "shape") heel rolling into place

The wave looming

Uhoh

  

  

_________________________________________________

 

 

WOLF PEN, KENTUCKY

 

 

Such a sharp and pungent yet familiar, yes...

The smell of wild onions arising from the trodden

Ground -- 16-person film crew all over setting

Up the track shot. Everything grows back is the pleasure

 

Of James Still. A last walk to the final resting place,

A perfect face in the little ceramic kettle.

The blacksnake coiled in the the cool well.

Trillium white dancing, floating through the frame.

  

  

_________________________________________________

 

 

ZOOIN' IN ALPHABET TOWN

             for David Henderson

 

 

Blank spaces

Between buildings

Hadn't been there

 

Ooo, a little squirming

In a zoo now

Be cool

In the center

Don't get picked off

At the end

Of the line

To be eaten

 

Piles of rubbish

Broken glass & cans & jewels

Shimmering rubbish

Artificial moon

 

Neon blink

Between A & B

CLUB round & round

Neon blink

Good times here

Put together by one or two people

It's not like they're part

Of an international chain

Except the international chain of

No cover No minimum

No maximum

To the good times

 

Sign says Free Public Baths

Sign says Wholesale Vegetable Distributor

 

Big tapestry, brilliant

Jesus. Jesus! Window

Slams down.

 

Sidewalk covered with acronyms

HEW, HUD. Asbestos.

The man who invented asbestos

Died a few years later

Of lung cancer

All the builders insulated with it

Madison Square insulated with it

Until the elephants knocked it down

 

Nuyorican girls club

Teen Angels go

For a young boy's legs

Sweet torment, 6th St.

Well, the liquor store on Avenue C

Now there's a sight

Hard to get a bottle

Even when you got the money

Security door, bullet‑proof plexiglass

Attack‑train doberman shepherd

Hey, that liquor sure is priceless stuff

 

Roaming around food aromas

Bread baking

Ripe mangoes for a second

Did you get that

For a second strong mango

Tropical moon music

 

Music music music

 

7th between B & C

Right before dawn

Pushcart people

In the distance

Comin' up

Comin' up

Avenue C

From down below Houston St.

Settle down

Light little fires

Like a Gypsy caravan

It really was

Fruits, vegetables, candles

Mangoes? Not then

 

Not for long

With the Lower East Side Charcuterie

Do you accept food stamps for your pate?

Show me the way

To the next sushi bar

Cappuccino would be fine

Chevre & a nice lite wine

 

Hey, look over there

What used to be a Camaro

Parked where a building used to be

All the glass broken out

All the windows in the building broken out

It's in the right place

No tires

Not going anywhere

It takes a lot of cinder blocks

To seal up

The city cracks

 

Put that Camaro in a museum!

 

Crossing Avenue A

Feeling the DMZ

On 11th St., Paradise Alley

Kerouac wrote here

Then a shooting gallery

Now the junkies are blocked in

 

At one time neigh highly Jewish

Yeshiva here

The Irish controlling the waterfront

So the Jewish kids didn't go swimming

 

On 3rd St. some row houses

Hamilton Fish built them

Middle class, 1830's

7th St. bourgeoisie

 

Yo! Peace Eye Books

Kosher Dairy

Allen Ginsberg ate here

Muggers left his poems

Poems still here

 

Graffiti

I remember

 

What it said

I don't remember

 

A beautiful image

Street‑lit

 

Images sustain community

Gentrification cuts out

Music music music

 

The garbage

Hell I wrote a letter

Three days later

Two garbagemen

Came to the door

 

OK OK, let's trace it

Inside the detail

Let's trace the origins of garbage

Remember Lionel Ziffrin,

Famous (Zif) comics founder

Wandering late at night

Collecting icons

Old Ukrainian ones, homemade ones

Agents of Christianity also out late at night

Out to destroy the icons

Battle of the icons

 

Several places, they built their own icons

Birds on sheets, crate altars

Jars of liquid amphetamine

With different colored pebbles in them

People working all the time all the time

& then somebody flipping out

& trashing the whole place

 

Stomping in the night! Amphetaminos!

 

Reality sense community

Pockets of beauty

Survival music

Get it together before it disappears

 

The people the buildings & whatnot

People out there, life

Goes on in its everyday

Disaster area

 

Up on 75th & 5th with a beer on the street

Illegal to drink there, babes

Except Perrier

In a paper bag

 

Down here Esquire photoed some bums

Then polished them

Before & After

Now they're rich Hollywood stars

With agents

Now they're back on the Bowery

Wined

 

A bag lady listening through the door salsas

 

Tripping on D at 2 or 3

Sinister street

But keep it looking messed up

Maybe the gentry can't set up shop

 

In the apartments it's cozy

Outside, the garbage is camouflage

When the streets get cleaned up

The people who've been living here

Won't be able to afford to anymore

 

Painted walls

Empty buildings

Darkness at twilight

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

try another year?