Rusted globs roll boorishly from the roof,
collect,
glimmer,
and fall seven flights
to pulse squandered rhythm onto the alley.
But oh, to know it young
like a Beat ideal.
To speak in the loosened voice
of nowhere glances.
To say,
“Typhoon
with nothing short of screams for all this beautiful young life
that drowns in cirrhosis like cheap wine.”
Sweet void of
wine, subway door wombs, blackout remnants, light-bulb dead bed rooms, headphone solstice in reflections off the snow, Nells Cline guitar pulls, future shock, warm yellow chains every block in a displaced afterlife, slam poets on the Bowery, roof-top acid chats, rat infested Cajun kitchens, screaming bosses, two dollar PBRs, coke in dirty bathrooms, rotting pigeon wings melding with concrete and foot traffic each day on my way to the
One train
and a low-shudder picture of a ghost friend in a Kalamazoo park
glob my thoughts this morning
with indeterminate runoff
while I rent worry.
So I watch,
listen,
and let the Alley wake me
behind 123rd Street.
And oh, to know it young
and swipe life away
between shaky waves of panic
and nostalgic takes on rhythm.
To become the spit filled brass of my own expectoration
To meld with the concrete and foot traffic.
To deteriorate into vacuity and not be
and maybe take cue from the moon,
let my self out like a rip tide
outside my window
and speak in the muddled assuaging surfs.