Drunkenness and the street lights
spots on the walls
dim lights wavering up the stairs.
Several napkins crumpled
smeared with Chinese port sauce
but that was earlier
along the gutter
sickly yellow-green
ailanthus leaves fallen.
Lovely those people
who make no demands
not friend nor family
after all I never bicycled
through France in my late twenties
so never knew that sweet anticipation
of a life to come.
she said nothing
leaned on the stone bridge the wind
howled in my ear, pause
between the dropping
of the record & the music
dust the wind the streets
already in shadow
we walked someone
playing the piano in a tiled room
oh
said her mother a
mister dante called you
beatrice
a roman candle
the young queen:
Claree/screaming/spewing
bright colors everywhere
& falls like a pile of gray ashes
on 42nd street
the man in the street so
many disturbed
persons
in married life
that bird there, it's a gull?
the boys are
mimicking it
I will be an old man sometime
And live in a dive somewhere.
I will think of this night some place
the rain falling on stone.
There will be no one near
no whisper on the street,
only this song of old longing
the plaintive yearning to be young
and you together on some street.
Now is the time of dark retreat
from drugs, desire, dance.
This is the last chance.
This is not the last chance.
I shall be young again.
Why, only yesterday I lay drugged
on the dark bed through two days,
babey
come with me
barefeet
into
this nite rain
into
this warm moist nite
barefeet
barelimbed
into
this nite air
into this crystal clean air
which we swacked against the blackness
and stars.
we are cleaned
cleanst from top to bottom
November rain clots in
the fertilized gutter of my
dust packed soul,
existence storms within me
ticker tape thoughts struck by lightning
mad stockholders of cells sunspot through my flesh
reaching to sear the plastic backdrop
through which I walk.
Telling myself of Great Auk stars
does not create enough
petroleum jelly in my mind
to ease the burns from
my inward x-raying eyes--
frog legs of pain
can-can in burlesque of my seriousness.
my stomach unreels in newsreel battle gore,
slowly
the eye scans the page
the heart
beats steadily
while the mind winces in
in infinitesimal
spasms of
almost pre-natal pleasure
down in the street
it is divided
into three parts:
sidewalk, street proper,
sidewalk, large things
of equally inelastic matter
on either side
these, inhabited
dog invisible tags me
fugitive on empty street
sun keeps us in spidery web
my sequins caught in silk
his eight eyes unblinking
sombre harmonies of
sluggish sound
under high notes of
whistling wind
Geranium blouse blossoms
under sodium glow.
Mascara smile masks
her feelings, her tears
transparent as rain.
Sidewalk puddles frown
as neon rainbows kiss
her stiletto shoes.
She paces the track,
marking the boundaries of
consent, on slender tanned
stems turning to watch
headlights beam like a
flower following the sun.
I have visited men's rooms
in several bars
with the rows
of urinals like old men
and the six-sided odor
of disinfectant.
I have felt the sadness
of the small white tiles,
of the repeated shapes
and the unavoidable whiteness.
I have understood
that some afternoon
when it rains and the streets
blacken with umbrellas,
a white army
from all of the men's rooms
The deities of dream
Take their afternoon stroll down this street
Leading to the sea.
This avenue is neither
Broad nor beautiful,
But the African-born wind rises
And leaves something here
Akin to the warm
And domestic happiness
Of those who don’t ask why.
The clouds sketch
The outline of the travelers
Who discover the waves and pray
For their dead children,
Or for the ones that never arrived,
Like this treeless street