210 lines
9.7 KiB
Plaintext
210 lines
9.7 KiB
Plaintext
POEMS BY GREG MCGHEE
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kate
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she is listening to the radio wearing a black dress
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and shawl lost to her inner thoughts drinking her morning
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coffee
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kate's faded blue eyes study
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a photograph very frail thin and stooped she still
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capable of fierceness as winter slip into spring looking
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at the old yellowed family portrait at the center is
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military officer with decorations standing by him old man
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wearing a vest and two well groomed young men stand by him
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in white dinner jackets the young women are dressed in the
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latest fashions
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kate has been drug in taverns
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all around the town of paterson n j her face wrinkled
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by years of hard drinking the officer in the photograph
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die of heart failure the two young men were killed in a forgotten
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war the old man die she cannot remember why the lady's faded from
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her life like a long forgotten summer day her black locks are gray
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now in the photo she looks so young she is one with the atoms
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and the plants in a timeless universe as past and present blend
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together in the wilderness of her life a ship a drift in a sea of
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daydreams filled with the smell of sausage fried onions and
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sauerkraut sizzling in grease rising from the blast furnace
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of her mind in the haze of cigarette smoke from ancient pine
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forests cast in pewter filled with morning sunlight
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of dreams
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kate worked in a city laundry
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for 30 years and now play bingo at the church across the
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street in the autumn of her life.
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/ paterson, nj, 1993
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the angel
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the night passing into a television as angel think about
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cut himself with a razor early on eerie morning he feeling
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dehumanized losing his grasp just cruising in his van his mind
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is burning the air is filled with smoke his face is blank he
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losing himself in a desert of madness fill with hallucinates
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of a man eating monster that has a gravely
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jersey accent and wear black lace up boots he blink his eyes
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in disbelief staring dejectedly at oldsmobile that pass him by
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his old van wheezing in a cloud of blue smoke dressed in
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a leather motorcycle jacket and leather cap with dark sunglasses a
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half smoked marlboro in his mouth he squatting in a burned out building
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in n y c feeling like he turning into a statue fill with terror
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living in the litter strewn ruins of
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a manhattan tenement with a cracked facade and broken windows
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as drool is running down his face making him look like alien
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light up other marlboro in a lonely
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east side diner around 4 am he is writing poetry on old
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white lined paper about punks with spiked blue hair and skinheads
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he sit over endless cups of expresso then going back to his squat
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laying on a white mesh blanket covering a steel framed bed all
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he can hear is silent as grainy grayness surround his hollow face
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vacant eyes as coldness fill his bones his body is gaunt and rigid
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then his body shuddered convulsively it will not respond to commands
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from his brain to stop sweat run down his face he is mumbling incoherently
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his thoughts all jumbled and mix up praying to god tears trickling down his
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pale cheeks chain smoking playing with his dick he grab a razor the
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voices are telling him to cut it off but he race out of his place
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and jump into his van and ride into the city night
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/ paterson, nj, 1993
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dream time washington dc in 1984
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passing a quart of beer back and forth sitting on a wall looking
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at the cars moving up and down 14th street he talking about his
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ex wife marxist class struggle anarchy drugs bitching moaning
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he did time in ohio and virginia in the joint 24 months each
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time he talking about a pill head he known when he was in jail
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life on the streets dudes we both know the bottle empty we both
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walk off into the night i end up studying washington dc from
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the roof of 1345 euclid street feeling anger and sadness inside
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of me burning the city lights in the night outline the monuments
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archives museums the whitehouse it seem to me this place is the
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high altar of the money ministers the power popes who run the machine
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the ruling class thinking about a friend who got his 30 day pin from
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aa he has been sober that long my mind rushing down the years seeing
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other folks i have known with drinking problems turning over odd bits
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and pieces of information year in year out workers laboring in anger
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on spanish land from dawn to dusk on private owned farms communist dream
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of a worker state a government in which all members share in the work
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and product the anarchist dream of no state or government just the
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people will april 4 1931 the second republic was born general union
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of workers and the anarchist led national confederation of labor
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1936 the popular front of the left july 18 19 the military rose in
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rebellion nationalists rightists conservatives defense of the historic
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privileges of the catholic church monarchists and the fascist party
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in 1939 the republic fall in a bloodbath of a 3 year war in 1949
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the last guerrilla operations were dissolve november 20 1975 the
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war ended general francisco franco die and tonight i stand on a roof
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in washington dc studying the night
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8 4 93
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reading a racin form over a beer on a paterson saturday new
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jersey afternoon in a tavern smoking a lucky strike
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he go and call his bookie betting on a horse sitting at the bar
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as the rusted mechanical bartender wipe it his money is blow away
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on the wind as faceless wolves chew on his legs they are made of
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goop that stick to his fingers as their shadows clutch at his
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mind with a glass punk who has a blue mohawk and is lost in
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asphalt rivers of alienation as marching televisions are
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coming out from his mind in hi tech neon of his microwave
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corpse smelling like rancid garlic sitting in a room with only
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himself and mirror filled with emptiness for twenty long
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years with out coherent thought he wants to return to ra in
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a sacred ship to the city of the dead with his shatter mind
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in mental chaos from endless beers and trying to get rich from
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playing the horses and trying to escape a monster himself
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stumbling frantically and hysterical through life with patterns
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colors and murmur of his fear
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his face a roadmap of days
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and nights of heavy drinking red bloated he is lost in his
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delusions of grandeur with voices coming from his jukebox
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of dreams he ran numbers and was a smalltime bookie and got
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into some other two bit rackets that have fall from
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his pale faded blue eyes he broke so he call a barbarian
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loanshark to help him out he will pay and pay to the misfit
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mercenary on steroids or that mutant terrorist will use his
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fists or a bat to get his money back the poor sweet dude
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will keep drinking gambling and dreaming his life away
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/ paterson, nj, 1993
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late night dreaming
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my skull seem to have an asshole in it and i needed a new
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brain this one was fill with bouts of destruction depression
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then somehow became cover in last night love cheese of a
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jerk off fantasy dream and had a damn chrome helmet on my
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head that hide my brain
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that was the color of muted november sunlight in this same
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dream i was fill with golden waves and then i moved slowly
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down a street lost in a silver fog of a crimson soft light
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in yellow pools and dark halls at midnight wrapped in shadows
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across ruined ramparts in fractured patterns of purple
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phosphorescent rippling across my eyes in a flaming
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summer sun outline in blues and grays in a rainbow connection
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yellows oranges violets indigos rushing through my head
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now i have a glassface that
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on a journey through a sunset of pinks and reds and i am me
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again and go through the city of night gentle and quit moving
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like a cloud along catacombs of roads decorated with stones
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and bones in a darking autumn afternoon of purple heather
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and white yellow light fading into blue shadows in the
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flicker of a monet across dark towers cover in vinyl
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of the lost city of found objects in a cosmic dream cave
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of polyester in burning oranges and earth browns neon golden
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reds with a thousand points of light coming from a space
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age penis on a brilliant graffiti covered wall that is on
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the right side of the brain with fluorescent and incandescent
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light in a soft glowing palette mosaic of negative space
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against a deep blue sky of a new horizons of tranquil
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forests as a river run through my face and spray
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paint come out of my eyes
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with televisions of subconscious dreams systems and rhythmic
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changes motion in subterranean subways of silent videos
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filled with blending vibrations in a strange season of
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blue in a quiet time of tv dinners and pink golden toilet
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paper in a low pulsing drone of a shining moon of glass 15
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minutes before sunset fill with soft light of the city in
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a high wind of fear and death
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with illusion of depth in the
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badlands cover in scarlet of temperature climate controlled
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modular home of a cyberpunk with a stainless steel skull
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with brainrot living his backstreet dreams in a blackhole
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this is stuff dreams are made of
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1992
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