1292 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
1292 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
T H E C H E A P R E V I E W
|
|
|
|
O F P O E T R Y
|
|
|
|
|
|
#1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alice Notley
|
|
Bill Kushner
|
|
Elinor Nauen
|
|
Layle Keane
|
|
Lynne Beyer
|
|
Norman MacAfee
|
|
Peter Bushyeager
|
|
Sal Salasin
|
|
Shelley Miller
|
|
Tom Savage
|
|
Tony Vaughan
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Published and edited by Etan Ben-Ami and Anique Taylor
|
|
|
|
Copyright 1986 The Cheap Review Of Poetry
|
|
|
|
This on-line edition can be copied and distributed
|
|
without charge, provided that it is not in any way
|
|
altered and that it is not sold. All other rights
|
|
are reserved.
|
|
|
|
The Cheap Review Of Poetry is presented on-line as
|
|
a courtesy of The Dorsai Embassy teleconferencing
|
|
system. Your comments are invited. Contact the
|
|
embassy at (212) 431-1944, 300 or 1200 baud, 7 bits
|
|
even parity. Enter "HELLO DORSAI.EMBASSY" at the
|
|
system prompt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOH
|
|
|
|
No words
|
|
no thoughts
|
|
no lines no coke
|
|
no time no fun no father
|
|
no elm trees no babies no smarts no joy
|
|
no joyce no lucy no veeck
|
|
no prizes no pencils no manhood no ma'am
|
|
no me no you no noh no yo
|
|
no food no news no plane nomad
|
|
no go no good no jokers no buddha
|
|
nodoze no'ccount
|
|
no calls nocal no pot
|
|
no tan no cough no coffee
|
|
no mail
|
|
no tense no fern no chnage no hole no radio nolo contendere
|
|
no struggle no win no pain no gain no hits no runs no errors
|
|
no perfection no privilege no winter
|
|
no think nowise no thing nowhere no white
|
|
no whither november no trump
|
|
no plot no cast
|
|
no luck
|
|
noel nobody no table no peter no boycott noblesse oblige
|
|
no dakota
|
|
no vietnam
|
|
no carolina
|
|
no offense
|
|
no fever no fair no reubens no hollyhock
|
|
no rain today no nots no hots no ice
|
|
no straw no razor no sideburns
|
|
no sugar no truth
|
|
no wave no roaches no beat no sidewalk no shoulder
|
|
no peccadilloes no passing no turns
|
|
no irish no fresh no trespassing
|
|
no need no gas no window
|
|
no problem no more no way
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elinor Nauen
|
|
1/86
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MAYAN UPDATE IN THE EIGHTIES
|
|
|
|
|
|
Before it was a one-sided conversation
|
|
|
|
with rocks and dirt. While sweating
|
|
|
|
And swatting, we glared at rocks,
|
|
|
|
trying ot give them some humanity.
|
|
|
|
Ancient ball games pitted captives
|
|
|
|
against one another for their lives.
|
|
|
|
Heads of the losers were the balls.
|
|
|
|
Blood was the mortar of life.
|
|
|
|
Aristocrates drew their own blood
|
|
|
|
to nourish the gods and inspire
|
|
|
|
hallucinations in the heads of serpents.
|
|
|
|
Before going to war for example,
|
|
|
|
The king punctured his penis
|
|
|
|
with a stingray spine while the queen
|
|
|
|
drew a thorn-barbed rope through her tongue.
|
|
|
|
Thus the Mayans kept the universe alive.
|
|
|
|
The name for one king was shield.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Tom Savage
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HOW I GET BY
|
|
|
|
|
|
"It"
|
|
more than adds up
|
|
what I know of mathematics
|
|
the unclean universe
|
|
lines parallel from any angle
|
|
"you & you&you&you&you& "
|
|
lines perpendicular from any point
|
|
I love you absolutely
|
|
& you too
|
|
I'm always happy
|
|
when the phone rings
|
|
it's always good news
|
|
when you call
|
|
no time for aught but love
|
|
my heart is full
|
|
I stroke my calico cat pull out
|
|
a few clumps of hair visit my ailing neighbor weep
|
|
for the dead send out frantic bursts of psychic love
|
|
to save on my own long-distance bills:
|
|
I can make you (you, you) phone
|
|
it's all good
|
|
when you call
|
|
I'm imprisoned by these coordinates
|
|
: /noise/memory
|
|
someday the coffee'll be tepid
|
|
(just how I like it)
|
|
at every 3 a.m. feeding
|
|
the letters'll be rich & frequent
|
|
the jokes apropos
|
|
titles & new names fluff
|
|
round my dizzy head like relentless rowers
|
|
"I'd hate to see you when you're happy"
|
|
are we tired or is her exuberance crowding our joy?
|
|
I cannot go on without you/
|
|
I can live without anyone:I must
|
|
there are more irrational numbers than rational
|
|
tho the number of each is infinite:
|
|
my unswerving valiance
|
|
you(you,you,you..........
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Elinor Nauen
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Yankees are a wishful
|
|
|
|
thinking to some. Taking
|
|
|
|
a neurological break
|
|
|
|
from the gross fugue of life
|
|
|
|
sometimes the sun floods over
|
|
|
|
clogging the wires with love.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Playing dead among "grown-ups"
|
|
|
|
can lead to trouble.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A mistranslation
|
|
|
|
can alter brainwaves for life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The law of supply and command
|
|
|
|
sounds familiar to the man dying
|
|
|
|
in a backyard from the poison
|
|
|
|
sprinkled in the air for rats.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Tom Savage
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A NEW REQUIEM
|
|
part 2
|
|
|
|
|
|
Empires filter, misinterpret the old
|
|
tales to keep afloat, thought always being
|
|
just the continuuing of one thought.
|
|
In battle or lovemaking, hero's blond
|
|
wig falls off. He hides his face, loses head,
|
|
becomes all shoulders, contraposto murdered
|
|
beautifully by fate's delicate hands. We weep
|
|
only at change, hating the lover for
|
|
queering the ideal, however slightly.
|
|
Only proffs that love exists are pets, sex
|
|
organs, never quite severed umbilical.
|
|
|
|
Burly-queen savior, neon-lit, annunciated,
|
|
killed, mourned, resurrected over the week-
|
|
end, in his undershorts. Light shone through
|
|
the fabric. I helped carry him away.
|
|
We didn't know where we were or who we
|
|
were or where we were going. We avoided
|
|
everyone, to stay in the dream-- which love
|
|
made, only to keep us from...
|
|
|
|
...Lady in
|
|
red tangoies, weeping. Man robed in silken dress-
|
|
ing gown in large apartment in great city
|
|
takes one too many, observing a news-
|
|
paper as though it were life, observing
|
|
but not acting, made incomplete by
|
|
business, war,
|
|
while
|
|
Y
|
|
waits for the bus in
|
|
dead towns, Z scrapes his shoe sole twenty times
|
|
in front of a church or steals/owns a fast
|
|
car, pure laminated animal joy
|
|
beneath a suddenly chill August moon,
|
|
cleaning up the day's mess and sleep for
|
|
another. One becomes one's shadow, moves
|
|
inexorably to empty streets, voices
|
|
of slightly durnk friends in the distance,
|
|
and an evening of farts that hill breezes
|
|
blow away with exhaust fumes,
|
|
though when you hear what you
|
|
had waited for for so long coming, there's
|
|
a moment's fear.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A man half a century
|
|
old on a bench at one a.m. holds his
|
|
heart, watches his watch, fat, few head hairs,
|
|
quickly decides to smoke a cigaret,
|
|
pretend to wait for a bus.
|
|
|
|
Night world reflected on black water scrim
|
|
of shop windows that stars high silent
|
|
solitaries, in murders, back the way
|
|
I came, curling up to sexy death
|
|
above butcher shops, where
|
|
his
|
|
son
|
|
(perhaps
|
|
it's his son) is slowly disrobing.
|
|
Tomorrow he must go to work, with his
|
|
kind hurt gaze, too short, wrong accent.
|
|
On the second night he soiled his shirt, the
|
|
third his pants. Nothing quite works though he surely
|
|
does. He turns bright gold in his sleep, dreaming
|
|
he's staring at the gates of paradise.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Norman MacAfee
|
|
|
|
copyright 1986 Norman MacAfee
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GITANERIAS
|
|
|
|
|
|
forgetful of
|
|
thoughts of
|
|
first & second
|
|
any play
|
|
speeches about cheeks "ass cheeks" are they
|
|
firm? mooning etc
|
|
following the baby around. Then
|
|
all these women--mother, two
|
|
daughters a daughter-in-law, the mother
|
|
then looks up "lubricity" in the
|
|
dictionary. It could
|
|
mean she was well-oiled, as I said.
|
|
Tonight we watch "Witness"--eye-acting
|
|
Full moon last Tues. & quite truth-
|
|
fully, in the main men working on her yard
|
|
are in jail today, not sure why.
|
|
Haven't touched my horoscope in days
|
|
Dreamt last night I couldn't
|
|
talk it over in bed that was worst part
|
|
after I went to the ballets Balanchine
|
|
couldn't chorograph because he
|
|
was dead. There are two ways to
|
|
be after his time--the
|
|
|
|
right way & maybe the
|
|
weak way. Here are the Ishi books
|
|
Here is the song that's my thought
|
|
'Spanish piano passion
|
|
is still valid.'
|
|
(Repeat & improve)
|
|
in this particular instance of a life
|
|
am never going to...do
|
|
a simple Oriental number until
|
|
There wasn't enough hair dye for
|
|
two so only she
|
|
got to change
|
|
My friend gave magical mall walk, last week
|
|
"Love isn't love until you give it away..."
|
|
The answer is
|
|
a seltzer now________ still____
|
|
Call me up in a couple of days
|
|
But you called me oh it doesn't matter
|
|
Oh okay
|
|
GBS talks about this guy & echolalia
|
|
That's funny I remember when he told me
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We talked about echolalia all the time
|
|
at one time
|
|
what's an eccentric edge, to a girl like you
|
|
The hymn is to what, disguised as
|
|
what? it's the disguises
|
|
I'm having the most trouble with
|
|
the enemy always makes you think it's
|
|
your body--that bump &
|
|
your death was invented by
|
|
valentines of nightgowns and ugly ugly
|
|
roses made out of
|
|
Family Circle
|
|
Or No just a mother & a baby
|
|
Scared for 1st 2 years
|
|
everything for long & he
|
|
goes to stupid work you're supposed
|
|
to like it & get into breakdown body
|
|
There was this girl who
|
|
yeah I'm lazy, don't drive
|
|
that's where, every
|
|
where I went so far
|
|
I went further & far without car
|
|
I had a body of, working
|
|
something the flower bed
|
|
She's going to call it up
|
|
tomorrow...Joe...& Craig
|
|
|
|
Nobody said that
|
|
Read all these pictures instantly eat
|
|
some Nachos
|
|
Don't make anything be like
|
|
How many of these worries driving
|
|
through the alfalfa
|
|
When this gets corny real
|
|
Not real. That's not the stuff
|
|
This is the stuff
|
|
I don't have to go
|
|
and keep it with your handwriting
|
|
Sure. how we're liking it
|
|
National Geographic Magazines
|
|
read backwards & upside down
|
|
& with whatever words you say
|
|
I used to, I read everything he
|
|
wrote.
|
|
This movie makes me go to bed too.
|
|
Oh.
|
|
be a grievance. okay. No
|
|
not right now
|
|
(fades (is that the word?)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Alice Notley
|
|
July 25, 1986
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SONG BY DESIGN
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A crocus is edgy sentimental and
|
|
|
|
unfocused like a rainy night not
|
|
|
|
red and greasy like flowers brought
|
|
|
|
down to the house from the store:
|
|
|
|
sweetest fat valentines
|
|
|
|
with message previously attached yes
|
|
|
|
like the ocean don't turn your back or
|
|
|
|
a bracing fuck in a cold room we're
|
|
|
|
mapmakers who work and sing
|
|
|
|
hearts in the pine forest
|
|
|
|
indicated in green.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Peter Bushyeager
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We may not be kind
|
|
|
|
but we are enough.
|
|
|
|
We may not be strong, but
|
|
|
|
we pretend.
|
|
|
|
The mind is grey, a blend
|
|
|
|
of all colors.
|
|
|
|
mind over matter: I will line up
|
|
|
|
several pairs of shoes, heel
|
|
|
|
to toe. I will follow
|
|
|
|
their procession.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Lynne Beyer
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LITTLE LYRIC ON LABOR DAY
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Loose in bed with cheap description
|
|
|
|
like songs performed with piano
|
|
|
|
lovers' legs wrapping me awake with cold
|
|
|
|
morning air in the nostrils and a
|
|
|
|
full head of hair to carry me forward.
|
|
|
|
I touched the faces said you you
|
|
|
|
the bodies were land the heart was wet
|
|
|
|
the conversation passed quickly between us
|
|
|
|
like plates.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Peter Bushyeager
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At the Assemblies
|
|
|
|
of God church they talk
|
|
|
|
in tongues.
|
|
|
|
Belief in the value
|
|
|
|
of friction: more touch
|
|
|
|
and fewer explanations.
|
|
|
|
All American seekers of bliss,
|
|
|
|
drawn to the near-win.
|
|
|
|
The late great country-Western
|
|
|
|
singer Patsy Cline,
|
|
|
|
so desperate to make it right.
|
|
|
|
Gold record yellow rose house
|
|
|
|
and rosey babies.
|
|
|
|
He said, she said, black-eyed
|
|
|
|
in hog heaven. Merciful God,
|
|
|
|
according to the script,
|
|
|
|
she said into the mountain
|
|
|
|
as the plane crashed,
|
|
|
|
Oh, Charlie.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Lynne Beyer
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 |