Bleeding city blue
One
He never got sick of beer or women,
a new brand each with every appearance,
collected in the basement gallery on a shelf,
photographs and beer cans
carved with strange phone number,
he, the manager of a fast food emporium,
with fifteen-year-old girls lined out the door,
doing him service,
their heads bobbing and mouths moaning
to the music as he sat in his chair,
declaring perfect fidelity
as he drove his wife to the hospital
for the fifth time in so many babies…
Two
My Way,
The name had nothing to do with Frank Sinatra
one of a thousand other rinky-dink
go-go dancer places this side of the Hudson,
the crowd, a rogue's gallery of ill-contented me,
sleazing through the neighborhood like legless slugs,
drooping over the bar with tips for the "girls",
bearded man in back eyeing all
with finger on the shotgun trigger
ticking the time off in his head like judge,
jury and executioner,
shouting out last call before locking the doors.
Three
The boy in the candy store told me:
Momma loosed the belt on me,
like a poor nigger-slave from Buncombe,
my back-side not even bleeding
for lipping the `f' word on her,
papa on the road again,
forever calling up collect at night,
saying how he missed us,
though sometimes,
listening on the extension
I could hear the giggling in the background
And almost smell the perfume through the wires,
momma beating me for `f'ing her,
like I was the one who never came home at night,
drawing up stakes in some distant town,
bleeding loneliness out my zipper instead of piss.
Four
Hiding in darkness
the young man stuffs
himself in a bottle
at night like
unbroken man of war
people gazing
from the safety of glass
hearing the roar
of the sea
never chancing
the ranting monster
of moon and tides
ill-winds and death,
gales and furies,
mistaken voyages,
their single-sighted
Cyclops-mind
screaming blindly
from shore,
hating the lost
child who still
lives free
despite
the bottle.
Five
No clean air today,
just the smoke of the factory
thick in my eyes
as I rise from the leaves,
loose bits of tobacco clinging to my teeth,
spitting out blood
the wine's all gone
and so are the sad pixies
that pranced all night around the tin-can fire,
old bodies remain,
with green teeth and blackened eyes,
their Cinderella gowns
now rags around their shoulders,
moaning, groaning as they grope for breeze,
none of that cool air, mind you,
just the willowed river thick with bees,
buzzing with the traffic over the Wall Street bridge,
sad and tired
makes a man want to lie down again-- and die.
Six
The city ain't ugly, man,
it just is
some dumb rock left after a glazier has passed,
human-building nature stranded here
in the shadows of abandoned factories,
cool, cruel memory of eras
chiseled out in periods of design,
romantic or realistic,
like turfs fought over
by uptown, intellectual gangs,
or rude old English poets
fighting over a dead stiff,
Blake fighting Dickens leaving pits of Dante behind,
the brooding masses
crawling from door to door,
beggars in anybody's vocabulary.
Seven
I'm strung out on radio tunes,
shoulder boxes carried along the street,
the plague of empty boys
whose homes cannot satisfy their urge for sound,
screaming children competing for the bottom beat,
the illegitimate lack of isolation,
converted, as if a new faith,
into billboards and neon signs,
the blasting rap saying their alive,
scaring up not a feather from the backs of ducks
or shifting a blade of grass,
the park people brutalized in war-zone fury,
oppressive, indignant,
monstrous rich people insisting upon silence.
Eight
We do not all stand in the same limelight,
looking for the same measure of success,
the dark chambers around the circle
seem comfortable for some,
or for some, a torture chamber in which they are trapped
pounding ever on the bars of light
to gain entrance they cannot have,
sabotaging themselves,
their climb, a strange self-molestation,
as if any other form of living
would be more torturous.
All their lives
they have seen only
that single circle of light,
flying to it like moths,
suffering the burn of wings
and in that pain, joy of having found it,
coming to it for a brief instant
before crashing,
knowing what others in this darkness do not,
that there is indeed light in the world.
Nine
There is no time to contemplate the soul,
sore claws digging at the earth like so many spades,
looking for secrets of survival,
the back breaking bend of rage
satisfied with Friday’s check
sore, rough men sit at the bar,
discussing the world in vulgarities,
and prime time TV,
too tired, too disinclined to think better of their lives,
love lost to the brutality of common men,
drunk by seven,
beating their wives by eight.
Ten
People called us Mall Rats,
swaggering overnight workers
graveling in bakery dough and donuts,
a piracy of late night rages
roaring through the empty halls,
the echoes of footsteps and voices
like sounds of ghosts,
or songs of freedom,
the strict rules of corporate mall management
lost in the long shadows of closed stores and silent muzak,
our bare feet dangling in the manager’s precious fountain,
skinny dipping for dimes and quarters
We, raising the ire of daylighters who believe,
with reason,
our midnight mockery was aimed at them,
and their organized lives,
our underground,
a sewer of doused lights and blinking alarms,
of still-mannequins winking from closed store displays,
our madness running rampant
on roller-skates or surf boards,
leaving a trail of wheels and wet feet
across the otherwise unspoiled tiles of polished floors,
like the mark of Cain upon their otherwise perfect world.
Eleven
I saw him today with a can of beer in his hand,
the man who’d detoxed in the best state facility,
after having learned that life ain't no sixties trip,
he, always changing my name to `Ray'
when he spoke to others of me,
always confusing me in time,
shaping me in his memory of one of his original cronies,
lying to students to justify his latest incarnation,
denying his hatred of cops and soldiers,
denying his Marxism like Peter did Christ,
waiting for the roosters to reveal his complicity.
Twelve
They asked me to decide,
giving me options on a career,
a perfect test-tube child-like machine,
cloned to their specifications,
the lessons of Berkeley: 1964,
lost in new world orders,
no police cars to surround,
no swarm of protestors,
no political pamphlets either,
just me, Thoreau’s majority of one,
wishing I could think,
breathe,
or make-love in the privacy of mind,
knowing that in 1991 no such room exists.
Thirteen
Aye,
no one is immune.
After a year as messenger
underground,
the subway stops still confuse me,
two cups of cappuccino
buzzing in my head,
stations blinking by
like sixties trip-strobes,
graffiti pasted over the map
no hope, no up and down,
no plans for going home,
surfacing in the middle
of nowhere like a groundhog
discovering spring,
looking at the shadow
of skyscrapers
rather than my own,
diving back,
accepting another
six whole stops
like winter.
Fourteen
Newspapers and coffee
the newsprint wall
rustling as minutes tick by
for the second bus,
cold rain dripping from porch roof,
long walk to shelter
where suited men huddle under briefcases and morning reports,
grumbling as the squeaky bus doors open
four feet and four water inches deep from the curb,
riding the eternity from suburb to city,
like superman changing from Clark Kent,
the smell of sweaty bodies thick in the closed place,
despite cologne,
morning showers and deodorant,
depositing them in the turtle race of lost hours
and faceless dreams.