Inside the rain
I’m standing.
Walking that strange plain;
The one that’s sad and sweet,
Funny and bitter
And incomplete.
I wish this rain would cleanse me now,
To wash away
The tears I’ve shed.
I wish this rain could cleanse me now,
And wash away
The fears I dread.
I’ve seen you now;
For the brush
Hit paint
And the paint
Hit canvas
And the picture is
Finished
…Farewell.
I remember when I was strong.
When we left the Village and jumped on the
Subway
To 125th street.
And we stabbed our veins,
And you told me I was a genius
But I was uncomfortable with that,
And you laughed.
I never told you this,
But when we were drinking our
LIT’s, on familiar ground,
So high we just held each other;
Oblivious to everyone —
And you would say that nobody would fuck with me
Anyway,
I wanted to run away.
But you were so comfortable in my scars.
But now you are gone, and so am I.
I have to wonder
Why you left me standing here.
I remember when you would hold my arm
And pull me toward you.
You would sigh
in your half sleep
And plead for me not to leave.
But where did I go wrong? What did I do?
You never told me.
Even now, you won’t tell me.
And I suffer.
Aeschylus with his Agamemnon.
Ovid,
Virgil,
All the way up to Camus
And beyond.
Kerouac,
Wolfe, Thomas, that is,
Chopin and Brecht,
And don’t forget about Garcia Marquez.
Hemingway with his whiskey,
Along with Jean Genet looking for the key,
Shirley Jackson and her Lottery,
And Hegesias’ lectures just might set you free.
Locke and Roth,
Sandburg and Eliot,
The farm and Kesey,
And all that fucking Greek tragedy.
There just might be something else
To get us through.
Passing dirty streetcorner
After dirty streetcorner,
Long ago.
Squalid geometry.
With all those dissecting miles of asphalt,
Dotted by sewer plates, and narrowed by endless rows
Of parked cars as far as one can see.
Making my way
To that sacred building of self-salvation,
With its Ionic columns and Beaux-Art style,
Where old friends would wait
Patiently
In exalted timelessness among
Law,
Travel,
Religion,
Et cetera, et cetera;
Poised to impart
All the beautiful philosophies
And jaw-agape stanzas
And
Stories and experiences and dreams and tragedies;
To coax the soul from its back alleys.
And you sit a moment
And think
“They are all dead now.”
And the dark fact that you had such a stark thought
Makes you question for a lonely moment your sanity, or
At least
Your immediate hold on your own
Sopping emotions.
But you are pulled from this,
Quickly,
But
Ever
So gently, in all that vaulted solitude,
As you turn your eyes to those wonderful
Rows, and your
Nascent
Epistemology.
That nightWhen I was kicking the curbAnd you stoodAbove me I knew then thatI had left myIntellectAt the door My hidden geniusHad finally run away,The thing that for so many yearsI begged and bargained to stay. But it’s gone now, and so are you.Farewell to what made me, me.
That nightWhen I was kicking the curbAnd you stoodAbove me I knew then thatI had left myIntellectAt the door My hidden geniusHad finally run away,The thing that for so many yearsI begged and bargained to stay. But it’s gone now, and so are you.Farewell to what made me, me.
Back beat.
Don’t you know that I love the sun
And
Retreat
More often than not.
And for all my books
I still can’t find
The answer
That I’m looking for.
Long roads leading nowhere,
I stand still,
wondering
Why I can’t get there.
How many times
Can I make the same mistake?
How many times
Can I ruin my life
And still face the day?
Hopping the fence separating Dean and Jim’s backyards, Dean tripped in the darkness and heard Jim’s sister, Tonya, laughing from her darkened bedroom window.
“Nice Goin’.”
“Got nothing better to do?”
“Nope.”
Dean was still a little red in the face when he banged on the back screen door.
“Come on in.” Jim yelled from the couch.
“What’s wrong with that fuckin’ sister of yours?”
“Don’t ask me man,” Jim told him, You’re the one who goes out with her.”
“Yeah, well…” Dean went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. “Did you make the call?”
“Yeah. Twenty minutes.”
“Who, Tenth Street?”
“No, Uptown.”
“I hope it’s good,” Dean warned, “last time we copped from up there it was garbage!”
“Don’t worry.” Jim said
Dean walked over and sat down by the window. Summer had arrived and the darkness is soft now, and calm. And outside on the street the glow from the streetlights is falling down upon the sidewalks and parked cars, like fog or mist or something he could walk outside and touch with his very hands; to stand in and feel its presence.
Tonya slammed the refrigerator door and Dean turned his head.
“What are you lookin’ at, ” she said, “and what’s that in your backpocket, another book?”
It was the way she said it, “anothur Buuk? That it made it felt like the touch of a cattle prod, as if the sight of it was contemptible and vile.
“A couple of paperbacks wouldn’d exactly kill you either,” he shot back.
“Screw that.”
“Oh, great answer, ” he said sharply. “C’mon Jim.” Dean stood up and walked immediately out the door. He could hear Jim and Tonya arguing as he took the stairs two at a time. He decided to wait for Jim on the corner.
Dean leaned against a STOP sign and looked up and down the depressed streets. To his right he could see an empty lot with a row of cinderblocks still standing in the far corner as a reminder that what dies down here stays dead; in front of him is a sadly lit basketball court with bent and netless rims, crowded with the ghosts of a more innocent time; and to his far left is the ever-changing, surreal, graffiti-engulfed garage door of the A-1 auto body shop. Dean would sometimes joke aloud, after seeing the colorful scenes painted upon the wall, that Salvador Dali is secretly living in the neighborhood, and that someday he is going to catch that ‘crazy bastard.’ Above all this though, the stars burn, and look like diamonds.
Jim made his way to the corner with a bag of loose beers. “They should be here any minute.”
