1292 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
1292 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
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T H E C H E A P R E V I E W
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O F P O E T R Y
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#1
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Alice Notley
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Bill Kushner
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Elinor Nauen
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Layle Keane
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Lynne Beyer
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Norman MacAfee
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Peter Bushyeager
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Sal Salasin
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Shelley Miller
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Tom Savage
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Tony Vaughan
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Published and edited by Etan Ben-Ami and Anique Taylor
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Copyright 1986 The Cheap Review Of Poetry
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This on-line edition can be copied and distributed
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without charge, provided that it is not in any way
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altered and that it is not sold. All other rights
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are reserved.
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The Cheap Review Of Poetry is presented on-line as
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a courtesy of The Dorsai Embassy teleconferencing
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system. Your comments are invited. Contact the
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embassy at (212) 431-1944, 300 or 1200 baud, 7 bits
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even parity. Enter "HELLO DORSAI.EMBASSY" at the
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system prompt.
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NOH
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No words
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no thoughts
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no lines no coke
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no time no fun no father
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no elm trees no babies no smarts no joy
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no joyce no lucy no veeck
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no prizes no pencils no manhood no ma'am
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no me no you no noh no yo
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no food no news no plane nomad
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no go no good no jokers no buddha
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nodoze no'ccount
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no calls nocal no pot
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no tan no cough no coffee
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no mail
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no tense no fern no chnage no hole no radio nolo contendere
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no struggle no win no pain no gain no hits no runs no errors
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no perfection no privilege no winter
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no think nowise no thing nowhere no white
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no whither november no trump
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no plot no cast
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no luck
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noel nobody no table no peter no boycott noblesse oblige
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no dakota
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no vietnam
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no carolina
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no offense
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no fever no fair no reubens no hollyhock
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no rain today no nots no hots no ice
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no straw no razor no sideburns
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no sugar no truth
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no wave no roaches no beat no sidewalk no shoulder
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no peccadilloes no passing no turns
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no irish no fresh no trespassing
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no need no gas no window
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no problem no more no way
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Elinor Nauen
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1/86
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MAYAN UPDATE IN THE EIGHTIES
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Before it was a one-sided conversation
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with rocks and dirt. While sweating
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And swatting, we glared at rocks,
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trying ot give them some humanity.
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Ancient ball games pitted captives
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against one another for their lives.
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Heads of the losers were the balls.
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Blood was the mortar of life.
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Aristocrates drew their own blood
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to nourish the gods and inspire
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hallucinations in the heads of serpents.
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Before going to war for example,
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The king punctured his penis
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with a stingray spine while the queen
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drew a thorn-barbed rope through her tongue.
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Thus the Mayans kept the universe alive.
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The name for one king was shield.
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-- Tom Savage
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HOW I GET BY
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"It"
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more than adds up
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what I know of mathematics
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the unclean universe
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lines parallel from any angle
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"you & you&you&you&you& "
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lines perpendicular from any point
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I love you absolutely
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& you too
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I'm always happy
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when the phone rings
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it's always good news
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when you call
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no time for aught but love
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my heart is full
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I stroke my calico cat pull out
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a few clumps of hair visit my ailing neighbor weep
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for the dead send out frantic bursts of psychic love
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to save on my own long-distance bills:
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I can make you (you, you) phone
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it's all good
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when you call
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I'm imprisoned by these coordinates
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: /noise/memory
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someday the coffee'll be tepid
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(just how I like it)
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at every 3 a.m. feeding
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the letters'll be rich & frequent
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the jokes apropos
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titles & new names fluff
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round my dizzy head like relentless rowers
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"I'd hate to see you when you're happy"
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are we tired or is her exuberance crowding our joy?
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I cannot go on without you/
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I can live without anyone:I must
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there are more irrational numbers than rational
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tho the number of each is infinite:
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my unswerving valiance
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you(you,you,you..........
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-- Elinor Nauen
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The Yankees are a wishful
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thinking to some. Taking
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a neurological break
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from the gross fugue of life
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sometimes the sun floods over
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clogging the wires with love.
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Playing dead among "grown-ups"
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can lead to trouble.
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A mistranslation
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can alter brainwaves for life.
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The law of supply and command
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sounds familiar to the man dying
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in a backyard from the poison
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sprinkled in the air for rats.
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-- Tom Savage
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A NEW REQUIEM
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part 2
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Empires filter, misinterpret the old
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tales to keep afloat, thought always being
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just the continuuing of one thought.
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In battle or lovemaking, hero's blond
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wig falls off. He hides his face, loses head,
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becomes all shoulders, contraposto murdered
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beautifully by fate's delicate hands. We weep
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only at change, hating the lover for
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queering the ideal, however slightly.
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Only proffs that love exists are pets, sex
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organs, never quite severed umbilical.
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Burly-queen savior, neon-lit, annunciated,
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killed, mourned, resurrected over the week-
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end, in his undershorts. Light shone through
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the fabric. I helped carry him away.
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We didn't know where we were or who we
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were or where we were going. We avoided
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everyone, to stay in the dream-- which love
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made, only to keep us from...
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...Lady in
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red tangoies, weeping. Man robed in silken dress-
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ing gown in large apartment in great city
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takes one too many, observing a news-
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paper as though it were life, observing
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but not acting, made incomplete by
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business, war,
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while
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Y
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waits for the bus in
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dead towns, Z scrapes his shoe sole twenty times
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in front of a church or steals/owns a fast
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car, pure laminated animal joy
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beneath a suddenly chill August moon,
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cleaning up the day's mess and sleep for
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another. One becomes one's shadow, moves
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inexorably to empty streets, voices
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of slightly durnk friends in the distance,
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and an evening of farts that hill breezes
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blow away with exhaust fumes,
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though when you hear what you
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had waited for for so long coming, there's
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a moment's fear.
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A man half a century
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old on a bench at one a.m. holds his
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heart, watches his watch, fat, few head hairs,
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quickly decides to smoke a cigaret,
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pretend to wait for a bus.
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Night world reflected on black water scrim
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of shop windows that stars high silent
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solitaries, in murders, back the way
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I came, curling up to sexy death
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above butcher shops, where
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his
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son
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(perhaps
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it's his son) is slowly disrobing.
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Tomorrow he must go to work, with his
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kind hurt gaze, too short, wrong accent.
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On the second night he soiled his shirt, the
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third his pants. Nothing quite works though he surely
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does. He turns bright gold in his sleep, dreaming
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he's staring at the gates of paradise.
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-- Norman MacAfee
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copyright 1986 Norman MacAfee
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GITANERIAS
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forgetful of
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thoughts of
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first & second
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any play
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speeches about cheeks "ass cheeks" are they
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firm? mooning etc
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following the baby around. Then
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all these women--mother, two
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daughters a daughter-in-law, the mother
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then looks up "lubricity" in the
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dictionary. It could
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mean she was well-oiled, as I said.
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Tonight we watch "Witness"--eye-acting
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Full moon last Tues. & quite truth-
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fully, in the main men working on her yard
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are in jail today, not sure why.
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Haven't touched my horoscope in days
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Dreamt last night I couldn't
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talk it over in bed that was worst part
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after I went to the ballets Balanchine
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couldn't chorograph because he
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was dead. There are two ways to
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be after his time--the
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right way & maybe the
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weak way. Here are the Ishi books
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Here is the song that's my thought
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'Spanish piano passion
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is still valid.'
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(Repeat & improve)
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in this particular instance of a life
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am never going to...do
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a simple Oriental number until
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There wasn't enough hair dye for
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two so only she
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got to change
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My friend gave magical mall walk, last week
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"Love isn't love until you give it away..."
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The answer is
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a seltzer now________ still____
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Call me up in a couple of days
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But you called me oh it doesn't matter
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Oh okay
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GBS talks about this guy & echolalia
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That's funny I remember when he told me
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We talked about echolalia all the time
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at one time
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what's an eccentric edge, to a girl like you
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The hymn is to what, disguised as
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what? it's the disguises
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I'm having the most trouble with
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the enemy always makes you think it's
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your body--that bump &
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your death was invented by
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valentines of nightgowns and ugly ugly
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roses made out of
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Family Circle
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Or No just a mother & a baby
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Scared for 1st 2 years
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everything for long & he
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goes to stupid work you're supposed
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to like it & get into breakdown body
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There was this girl who
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yeah I'm lazy, don't drive
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that's where, every
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where I went so far
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I went further & far without car
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I had a body of, working
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something the flower bed
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She's going to call it up
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tomorrow...Joe...& Craig
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Nobody said that
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Read all these pictures instantly eat
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some Nachos
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Don't make anything be like
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How many of these worries driving
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through the alfalfa
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When this gets corny real
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Not real. That's not the stuff
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This is the stuff
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I don't have to go
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and keep it with your handwriting
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Sure. how we're liking it
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National Geographic Magazines
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read backwards & upside down
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& with whatever words you say
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I used to, I read everything he
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wrote.
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This movie makes me go to bed too.
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Oh.
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be a grievance. okay. No
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not right now
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(fades (is that the word?)
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-- Alice Notley
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July 25, 1986
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SONG BY DESIGN
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A crocus is edgy sentimental and
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unfocused like a rainy night not
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red and greasy like flowers brought
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down to the house from the store:
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sweetest fat valentines
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with message previously attached yes
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like the ocean don't turn your back or
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a bracing fuck in a cold room we're
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mapmakers who work and sing
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hearts in the pine forest
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indicated in green.
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-- Peter Bushyeager
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We may not be kind
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but we are enough.
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We may not be strong, but
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we pretend.
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The mind is grey, a blend
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of all colors.
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mind over matter: I will line up
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several pairs of shoes, heel
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to toe. I will follow
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their procession.
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-- Lynne Beyer
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LITTLE LYRIC ON LABOR DAY
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Loose in bed with cheap description
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like songs performed with piano
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lovers' legs wrapping me awake with cold
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morning air in the nostrils and a
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full head of hair to carry me forward.
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I touched the faces said you you
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the bodies were land the heart was wet
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the conversation passed quickly between us
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like plates.
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-- Peter Bushyeager
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At the Assemblies
|
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of God church they talk
|
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in tongues.
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Belief in the value
|
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|
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of friction: more touch
|
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|
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and fewer explanations.
|
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|
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All American seekers of bliss,
|
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|
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drawn to the near-win.
|
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|
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The late great country-Western
|
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|
||
singer Patsy Cline,
|
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so desperate to make it right.
|
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Gold record yellow rose house
|
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and rosey babies.
|
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He said, she said, black-eyed
|
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||
in hog heaven. Merciful God,
|
||
|
||
according to the script,
|
||
|
||
she said into the mountain
|
||
|
||
as the plane crashed,
|
||
|
||
Oh, Charlie.
|
||
|
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|
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|
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|
||
-- Lynne Beyer
|
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|
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|
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|
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|
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|
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|
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|
||
LOWER EAST SIDE REFUGEE RUINS (1)
|
||
from "Eddy's Private Party"
|
||
|
||
|
||
BY CHICO. On wall of PANTRY SUPREME . Across from Veselka's
|
||
big window. Pop painting of Mr. Magoo, Culture Club Japanese /
|
||
Woody Allen, Mr. Fox and Mr. Rabbit playing in the same
|
||
cartoon band. Two hearts on the sidewalk -- E. 9th street.
|
||
A twenty foot black arrow 52 feet high on side of building
|
||
pointing nowhere . Monday night. 11 p.m. Downtown. Painted
|
||
on a fence. SLAM DANCING. ROCK AGAINST RACISM. One guess.
|
||
The people of Nicaragua. Mumble -- I can't hear a word. Signature
|
||
on sidewalk -- DON'T KILL THE PEOPLE OF MANAGUA. Lower East
|
||
Side Corn Garden. Slogan. HORN OF PLENTY. NOT THE GENTRY. The
|
||
grey six stroy building. And the dirty brown brick ones. Fire-
|
||
escapes by burnt windows. Beneath -- sunflowers. Greenery. A
|
||
community bulletin board. Next -- a car drives across Ave C.
|
||
/ Completely changed on the exterior of car -- Big Antlers
|
||
on welded racks front of the car. Blinking J E S U S LIGHTS .
|
||
Plastic Hail Maries stuck to outside body of car. Mariachi
|
||
music out loudspeakers on roof.
|
||
|
||
A CORN ROAST IN COMMUNITY GARDEN. 1/4 block vacant lot at Ave
|
||
B and E. 6th St., converted into community garden. On late
|
||
Sunday afternoon (an odd light rain falling, in the late summer
|
||
1985). A grey, warm day. The garden nearly ripe with cabbage,
|
||
corn, cherry tomatoes, banks of herbs and small flowers,
|
||
cucumbers, onions, kale and giant sunflowers. S U N F L O W E R
|
||
GARDEN. Primrose -- a little overgreen. Clam shells in circles
|
||
on a flower bed. In the garden house (a shelter built from
|
||
wood found in nearby Lower East side Refugee Ruins) -- accordian
|
||
music is played. People sit on chairs, stools. Everybody knows
|
||
everybody or even the strangers are eating corn, too -- since
|
||
the event has been advertised.
|
||
|
||
Surrounding the garden on two sides are high buildings
|
||
(can't see over them) -- hand-laundered green and black shirt
|
||
still hangs out window to the north/east -- downtown side.
|
||
IN THE G A R D E N a prayer wheel is turned. A blessing
|
||
for the corn. On surrounding cyclone fence, the purple
|
||
and white morning glory.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Tony Vaughan
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
The overhead's too high
|
||
I can't make the payments.
|
||
They're going to repossess my body.
|
||
I need it to get to work.
|
||
|
||
Dead men don't edit
|
||
I know that now.
|
||
The end's the beginning in
|
||
high heels.
|
||
Many words maintain great emptiness.
|
||
Crime does not pay.
|
||
|
||
My desires are all without exception
|
||
ridiculous. I'm just a
|
||
whited sepulcher there's
|
||
a piece of kleenex on my throat where
|
||
I cut myself shaving.
|
||
We write this because
|
||
in each generation someone has to.
|
||
We don't care who.
|
||
|
||
And wherever there's a language
|
||
people say important things like
|
||
I think we're going to have to let you go.
|
||
If I'd only followed my mother's advice
|
||
I'd be dead by now.
|
||
A lot of guys will give you the rush
|
||
and tell you how great they are.
|
||
I'm absolutely unexceptional.
|
||
A man in a grey business suit
|
||
walks under a six-story marble ear.
|
||
He shrugs his shoulders as if to say
|
||
it's still a stone ear.
|
||
I'm sorry this happened to you.
|
||
You never learned anything.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Sal Salasin
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BEGGAR'S HOLIDAY (2)
|
||
|
||
|
||
The first thing i noticed
|
||
Heavy metal Horses on Oakland Bay
|
||
Sky purple Sunblue A basement window flying
|
||
|
||
How many times ask
|
||
would i rather in dirty rotten
|
||
spend countless days to finally
|
||
in so many undereyelines later
|
||
see that face in a small
|
||
voice photo centerfold
|
||
backstagebackpage
|
||
or here.
|
||
where it isn't cold.
|
||
|
||
The rains of San Francisco blow me
|
||
The days of adventure are over
|
||
The rains of leaden question fall the same as snow in the east
|
||
but it isn't cold.
|
||
|
||
Magic star dust blows away and now is a windy tow
|
||
|
||
where old beats are still good beats
|
||
snapping out the poetry in
|
||
a beard. a belly now
|
||
upright tits in a t-shirt
|
||
older still smoking coffee
|
||
drinking these 20 years
|
||
with words under the bridge
|
||
the golden gate
|
||
the golden words
|
||
their golden time
|
||
When a black man poet sat at the Trieste
|
||
with good blondes from the midwest
|
||
When a black man poet could live on charm
|
||
before he lived off the friends
|
||
gathered here to say goodbye on Chorus Shore.
|
||
|
||
We walked up to a dark door that said Open.
|
||
|
||
It was a black ocean
|
||
then a mountain
|
||
topped with our spilled seeds.
|
||
|
||
Your horn played to wind sucked
|
||
into sunset. living more
|
||
than in a room where everything bounces back.
|
||
We are the are of saxophones
|
||
more alive outside.
|
||
|
||
-- Layle Keane
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
We're only in 1965 but
|
||
you can come closer.
|
||
Is the government ready?
|
||
Yes your honor
|
||
and will prove the possibilities
|
||
infinite.
|
||
People come up to me in the street and
|
||
tell me their problems and
|
||
I help them.
|
||
It's like eating bath salts.
|
||
A man with a greed for the truth
|
||
should expect no mercy.
|
||
|
||
It's warm and humid with
|
||
a 30% chance of thundershowers.
|
||
I thrust my legs through my
|
||
bathrobe sleeves and
|
||
try to stand up.
|
||
What are you going to do about it,
|
||
talk?
|
||
Living with your mind
|
||
is a personal responsibility.
|
||
There was a wonderful exitement that
|
||
seemed to be everywhere.
|
||
Ports along the entire coast remain
|
||
in a high state of alert.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Sal Salasin
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BEGGAR'S HOLIDAY (3)
|
||
|
||
|
||
You were strong and rash
|
||
ramming traffic lights
|
||
driving
|
||
L.A.
|
||
crazy with Hebrew curses
|
||
craving contact.
|
||
With me
|
||
the quality changed
|
||
of your hand on my neck
|
||
held thumb and finger
|
||
a grasp
|
||
not affection
|
||
but defined touch
|
||
|
||
as we searched so diligently
|
||
for our sushine responding
|
||
with ecstasy jumping
|
||
skin to fore
|
||
all colors
|
||
rising
|
||
our jaws and groins
|
||
the warm not taken lightly
|
||
a godforce found shining in
|
||
|
||
But here
|
||
in this city land
|
||
play park
|
||
six flags over destitute
|
||
i ride a gesture
|
||
to the sea or building range
|
||
Where is my imagination here?
|
||
|
||
There are cold winds that cross the path
|
||
but the guides say walk in warm streams
|
||
keep tuned in
|
||
know the air when
|
||
all the visions and plans seen a far away
|
||
are treasure maps.
|
||
|
||
I've cried truth
|
||
in fleet moments
|
||
seeing myself for the first time sincere
|
||
and aching with realizing so clear and hard.
|
||
|
||
There is no cheating in the vault called Agate.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Layle Keane
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
JUMP
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
After you said
|
||
|
||
We are the loves
|
||
|
||
of our lives
|
||
|
||
I said
|
||
|
||
Loving you is like
|
||
|
||
jumping out a plane
|
||
|
||
without a parachute
|
||
|
||
and not getting hurt
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Later you said
|
||
|
||
You are a lighthouse
|
||
|
||
that's showing a movie
|
||
|
||
You are, you said,
|
||
|
||
the red light
|
||
|
||
I run each night
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
And I said
|
||
|
||
Loving you is like
|
||
|
||
slipping underwater
|
||
|
||
and breathing
|
||
|
||
better than I ever have before.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Shelley Miller
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
MIDNIGHT BLUE
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
I wonder what would happen if I didn't wipe my ass: this poem?
|
||
|
||
I hear you every night around this time sweet stuff is that
|
||
|
||
Your doggie panting so hot & happy to get out? the last
|
||
|
||
Piss of the evening is perhaps the most sentimental one of all
|
||
|
||
I see my face reflected reflective in the blue of the bowl
|
||
|
||
You are so beautiful, I whisper, I have never seen you
|
||
|
||
Looking so fucking beautiful! would love to fuck you
|
||
|
||
If only I could! I run wetting the floor to the window
|
||
|
||
To see you looking up you run your tongue around those newly wet lips
|
||
|
||
while your mutt takes an aching crap: "Ohh, lick it up"
|
||
|
||
You could say that to me & I'd hear you, you could even leash me
|
||
|
||
You stare down the dark frightening street, a cat in heat
|
||
|
||
You pretend you don't hear my heart knocking out a beat, you take it out
|
||
|
||
To take a leak, a hard piss, like yellow tears
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Bill Kushner
|
||
2/18/84
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
TO WALK YOU WALK
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
To walk you walk thru sidewalks peopled traffic hum
|
||
|
||
Anarchy reigns: if there were one way ahh but there's none
|
||
|
||
The gleam of that skin above a young man's thigh, he sits
|
||
|
||
Short-panted upon a stoop watching I bet for cops
|
||
|
||
This block's for drugs & that goes for all you mugs
|
||
|
||
One simply walks faster or slower according to one's character
|
||
|
||
His her or yours it New York belongs to everyone & therefore no one
|
||
|
||
Harlem, Chinatown, all these districts: flowers garment or theatre
|
||
|
||
& even in that little park full of bums why you better not look or
|
||
|
||
Try to join them, ahh everyone's got these rules so strict
|
||
|
||
On the Lower East Side please don't spit or you'll hit the poets
|
||
|
||
In Little Italy, hey you better not bump into no one called Tony
|
||
|
||
On Cristopher Street where grown men hold hands & even embrace
|
||
|
||
You may slow down ahh but just for a minute on your merry way
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-- Bill Kushner
|
||
8/13/86
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
k or
|
||
|
||
Try to join them, ahh everyone's got these rules so strict
|
||
|
||
On the Lower East Side please don't spit or you'll hit the poets
|
||
|
||
In Little Italy, hey you better not bump into no one called Tony
|
||
|
||
On Cristopher Street where grown men hold hands & even embrace
|
||
|
||
You may slow down ahh but just for a minute on |