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.
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.
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.”
I lost all my genius that night.
And all the colors of my mind
ran away,
and fell
to an indiscriminate gray.
All my exploding canvases
woke up and decided
to go away.
And all my poems are now written in a sad,
empty light.
No more fight.
No more sight.
No more little smiles;
a sad broken heart,
in the emptiness of night.
My Toulouse-Lautrec died in a train wreck.
My Dylan Thomas drank himself to death.
And oh, my Van Gogh
eventually gave up,
realizing his Gauguin had gone.
But more than that,
My Beethoven,
stuck his head in that
Sylvia Plath
“I don’t care anymore” oven.
The music that comes from
your soul
is so unlike mine.
Because I know
it’s all a matter of time.
I don’t think you should bandage my wrists anymore
because my planet, baby,
has been rocked to its fatal core.
Hope always falls down and gets hurt.
Spinning around, I fall down,
face down in the dirt.
I’m banging around this life
Like I’m in some kind of holy closet.
Light off, head hurt.
My heart has been torn from my chest.
This world has fucked me up.
I’m gone.
It has kicked my teeth in.
And there is no woman on a white horse.
I have so many things to write, but cannot.
I hate being broken.
Life dragged me
into
a
back alley
and beat the hell
out of me…
and I came out
with
a busted lip
and nothing more to say.
And I see her now as Nero as Rome burns.
And my teeth are scattered along some highway.
And we are mad, dejected, lost…
And my name is inscribed and burned into some altar,
Somewhere,
And angels and devils fight over it…and we will never be found…
Ever.
High heels,
a wind-swept dress,
hair abandoned in the wind.
And as she delicately sweeps it
from her face
she laughs to herself
as we both enter the store
at the same time.
“Whew, it’s awful out there,” she says,
smiling.
“Yes, it is,” I say,
shyly.
She turns and looks at me,
for a moment too long,
as my warm face slips to vermillion
because her eyes are like
sapphirine prisms,
and I cannot utter another word.
“Well, have fun shopping,” she says,
knowingly.
“You to,” I say,
walking toward the oranges and bewilderment.
Kick me.
Punch me.
Scratch me.
Tear my shirt and tell me
That I will always set you free.
Hate me. Love me.
And even look down on me.
Pull my hair
And slap me.
Put your sweet foot
In my face
And tell me
That no one could ever take my place.
I will read all the books
That were ever written in your soul,
All the words
You just couldn’t control.
