when he gets drunk and depressed.
His garbage Barbie chick
says she is tired of being “punk.”
The drugs don’t work,
they just make it all worse,
and I wonder if I will
ever see her face again.
“Haven’t had a a serving dream in a long time,”
ever see her face again.
“Haven’t had a a serving dream in a long time,”
I say, as if they are listening
“Maybe I’ll pick up a shift to bring back the fear.”
"Let’s be Proust," Charles says
with the smile of a drunkard
though he is sober and serious
about wanting to publish 100 books of poetry.
I leave to get a break
“Maybe I’ll pick up a shift to bring back the fear.”
"Let’s be Proust," Charles says
with the smile of a drunkard
though he is sober and serious
about wanting to publish 100 books of poetry.
I leave to get a break
and get a pack of smokes,
say hi to the bodega guy,
and visit Moondog on the corner of
51st and 6th.
51st and 6th.
He recites me a viking poem,
I give him a smoke a a buck,
and we discuss the gang upstairs,
all folly and flare, as if our 20s were for wasting.
He asks me how I am holding up
in all his hobo wisdom,
and I say I would rather worry
about getting old.
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown,
I am just as weighed down by the present
as I am the forgotten future
and my unforgivable past.
Back up in the apartment,
Ritchie Valens sings on a VHS
and everyone has disappeared,
probably writing poetry about me dying.