Thick garrison belt,
buckled left of the navel,
peg pants,
worn low on the hips,
eyes to the corner,
ecstasy of wrench
on fire hydrant.
Girls with their big red lips,
sucking off gum,
waiting for the Puerto Ricans
with garish suspenders,
at the handball courts.
Dion and the Belmonts,
street corner Italian crooners,
itinerant tough-skinned black boys,
and the Jew,
hiding out in the basement
at the schule.
Quiescent crackling of concrete,
medley of glass on its way
from tenement windows,
an occasional tree,
cringing.
The great drum of traffic,
the rhythm of men
on the way,
with their blood red glands,
dark and smokeful starless night,
sound of the sirens,
the breathing of deadbeats
and the soft silent murder
at the penny arcade.
Neat little houses,
hidden by driveways,
connected by highways,
protected by the capital they keep,
behind the subtle art of locksmiths.
Behind the windows
and the dust,
human attempt some caressing,
are sent to the hospitals to multiply.
At a singular window,
a young boy sits,
drawn to the great
white sheets of rain
against the gray of
bricks and sky.
Drawn to the books
in the library,
books on Dung Beetles and
mysterious diseases.
Under his woeful curious eyes,
great hordes of rabid squirrels
pursue him in the park,
black desires follow in the dark,
many conquered beneath his sheets,
many mysteries unbroken,
many doors unopened.
Beyond the place guarded
by the mask of his father
is the hallway
with its urchins
under the stairs,
and four flights to the rooftop,
to the pigeons and
black tar and glass.
Antennas sift the air for fantasies,
hoodlums hold meetings,
much cum in wrappers,
broken points of needles
and hard dry blood.
He walks the night
between the alleys,
under the stars
that would brave it.
The moon sends down
its ladder,
the escape is brief,
but complete.
On lonely fire escapes,
and empty lots,
and the train yards,
the outcasts meet
to work their spells
over and over,
to discuss the nature of aliens.
Summer with its vaporous heat
brings the boys out
with their steamy pricks
and their penchant for chaos.
He stands in the shadows
one hand on his fly,
he plummets resistance
with thick aching fingers,
he rushes and surges,
he jerks and he spits
leaving the residue and fragrance
of the drama and the moment
of the making of youth.
Citizens store up their rage
in pale-white balloon
concealed in their chests.
The air climbs
from great billowing chimneys,
dust settles on
all the local scavengers,
the day barely breaks
through the haze,
the sun barely vanishes the darkness.
Wet slippery bodies
sell automobiles
by way of the organs
in the television,
in the whirl of electron beam junkies,
and DJs with gonorrhea dreams.
Ancient mysteries are locked away
in coconuts with plain brown wrapping
to be unlocked when the first great tide
brings the final flood.
Meanwhile, at the automat,
and the skin palace,
the news continues.
Mourners concerning the
death of consciousness
move about undetected
among the hissing and sneering
and general discontent.
He makes a mockery of
the social laws
by taking them seriously.
Men and women
descend on great escalators,
ascend in stainless steel elevators
to corridors and cubicles above the street
in the elaborate space of commerce,
to watch and protect
the fabulous flow of
the limitless search for wealth.
Night blooms and
falls its darkness
to the delight of serpents
and creatures of the streets.
In every glorious plan of order
waits its own particular chaos,
the city neither wakes
nor sleeps,
for fear of the existence
it implies.
With the aid of
forged steel forceps,
under the surgeon's lamp,
he came to earth,
on Wednesday,
where one great war
lost Nagasaki to the screaming air,
propelled into the human school,
sent spiraling into
hard cold hands,
near the whirring of machines,
given to mother,
reluctantly,
dispatched with certain aspirations
on cold clear Wednesday,
where sky and sun forgave
the father of his crime.
Moon through windows,
pulling dark waters of insanity
into idle lonely hearts.
He is drawn
to the rain,
to the swirling air
and the silent machine of dusk,
to the clouds,
the dust
and the deep, blinding silence.
The city
encloses the very soul
of waiting,
both ends of
social needle
leave their expectations,
the goal forever nebulous,
the waiting goes on,
leaving its wake of rage and
frenzied torment.
Love finds its refuge,
pain its purpose.
His dreams excel
beneath the covers
of father's girlie magazines.
The mist off the pavement,
the thin air of boredom, and
the light in the basement,
the sky runs forever
across the long lonely street,
his eyes are those of the gypsy.
The cities and the mountains
call like sirens
to the hostages impaled on
silver needles in houses
where good dreams flounder
and the drought kisses rain.
A singular soul storm,
one long dark body
in a restless cocoon.
Outside beneath the awning
near the church bazaar
by the side of the highway,
thumbs are drawn like pistols,
one hand on iron,
one foot in prison,
mother keeping house
at the tenement door.
Long beards and baggage
and bus station greetings,
lives call like sparrow
on long lonely branches,
and somewhere
the honey of laughter
and somewhere
the oozing of sperm.
The earth pushes out its future
in the contractions of dawn.
Friends wait in the boulevard
holding thin mirrors,
highways bake in the sun,
the bed is made ready,
its potions prepared.
He is drawn
to the rain,
to the swirling air
and the silent machine of dusk,
to the clouds,
the dust
and the deep, blinding silence.
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