1. quit high school…
2. lived everywhere…town to town
3. different jobs…occupations…
4. two suicide attempts…
5. two marriages…
6. diagnosed bipolar…
7. lived in historic houses…
8. slept under old willows in Central Park…
9. homeless for 6 years…New York…Vermont…Montreal…Philly…a Dodge Avenger…
10. four friends killed…senseless..
11. dismissed by family…
12. old allies now gone…
13. college degree…
14. a writer by trade…
15. 30 visits to psych-wards throughout the U.S. …
16. on meds…off meds…
17. heartbreaks and hangovers…
18. mom died…dad’s gone crazy…
19. just put it on the page…after sleepless nights….
20. And…i’m still alive…beat that…

and a child was born unto her…this whore of Gotham…under an expressway as semis drove above and families passed-on en-route to all points south…vacations awaiting…condo packages purchased…

the cord was cut with a rusty blade found in a garbage can outside a tavern where old men drank away mistakes from the past along with current woes…shot after shot after shot..chased by beer after beer…wives waited…supper got cold..

the whore did not yell…nor kick…or scream out in pain…a bottle of brandy close-by…passed back and forth…dark eyes closed tight as a boyfriend breathed along…in and out in and out…a rhythm…a beat…keep goin’ honey…

bums walked past…some paused…looking-on at the miracle of birth…naked…truth…simplicity…making man want for love…a caring hand to hold…

newspapers gathered…The Post…Daily News…El Diario…make-shift sponges soaking-up spilled blood…tears wiped away…covering the whore and child…a baby boy she would name Moses…warmth…warmth…

yet…like a bank-heist at midnight…Moses was taken from a sleeping mother…sold to the highest bidder…a couple of grand given to a father in need of a fix…in need of a fix…turning the child into junk shot-up in back alleys…bathroom stalls…abandoned homes…leaving the whore for a greater love…she could never give him this…

on a subway at 3…lying sideways shaking… cold sweat ran down a black forehead…brown teeth chattered…mumbling, I’m sorry…so sorry…forgive me…please lord…forgive me…

shhh…hush now,said the passenger standing above…holding a rail as the train rattled through the night…,shhhh…you are forgiven my child…you are forgiven…you are loved…

the passenger leaned-down on this broken soul…holding…rocking…holding…rocking with crying…a wide-open mouth…silent wails as beggars begged…and night-hawks flew…

shhh my child…shhh…you are forgiven…you are forgiven…

so you got this bowl of fruits in front of ya’…

yea…

cantaloupe…honeydew…strawberries…watermelon..

sure…

and you wanna save the best for last…the one you’ll remember right…

uh huh..

you eat around this last piece of watermelon the whole time…waiting…just waiting for it to be the last bite…you wanna remember the best…

but…what if you like honeydew…

this book-bag carries belongings from along the way…various places…reminders…

Simic…Whitman…Kerouac…add weight to this journey…passages and cups of coffee in Montreal…New York…Philly…Vermont upon autumn’s turn…ritual…thankful…

and miles driven…hiked…a tour of riches for the soul…never asking why…awaiting the next day…perhaps hour to unfold…revealing what…what…

all that there is at 48…a book-bag filled with Simic…Whitman…Kerouac…

i’ve lost nothing….

this…what is this…past…promises…oaths…never taken seriously…kids playing house…

yes…these lies upon lies…misrepresentations…cover-ups…leading to this…this…

you were embarrassed…a mate in search of soul…not money nor materials…power or position…these deals we make…in the name of what…

never impressed with sales figures…prizes or dividends…a bottom-line met… Meister Eckhart kept score…i chose his words…not your’s…

and i am at peace in not being at peace…to question…seek truth…looking for wisdom in old books…poems and prose…streets…ravines…forests… taverns across a land that chose commerce and real-estate…commerce and real-estate…

yet Whitman still walks among the dead…Melville fights the good fight…the noble battle…and Henry Miller dances away while Kerouac prays…they keep me alive…i’m not hungry…

so i say goodbye to you and America…home of the free and the not-so-often brave…so-long to this air-conditioned nightmare built upon sand…a beach closed in the winter-time…

it was never in the cards…never was…and that is O.K. …that is O.K. …

*a thanks to Joe Jackson and Henry Miller*

i knew Chicago…her streets…boulevards…back-alleys…busted sidewalks…i knew her well…

she was a saint…a thief…a wife…a whore…drinking buddy…mensch… a worker on call…a loud talker… a friend who would never turn on ya’…not for a dollar…nor for a prize…the broad was true…

we walked the lakeshore in moon’s bliss…read books on trains at 3 in the morning as bars spilled into taco joints and 24 hour diners on Clark…and blacks questioned cops and cops questioned blacks and this kid got shot and that guy shot him and crack dens served crackheads and hospitals pronounced the dead and where were you on the night in question…..with my boys playin’ cards and drinkin’ 40’s…I got alibis…

i knew Chicago…i knew that lady who rolled through good and bad without a blush or pause…just the crossing of her legs perched upon a barstool lighting cigarette after cigarette and snappin’fingers to beats…rhythms…and poetry given out in large doses…soul was always ’round the corner…

she moved from Northside to Southside…covered every game …always lookin’ for action…in Polack joints at closing time…Lithuanian pool halls and Yugoslavian church basements…feelin’-up yuppies who’d made their dough for the day…talkin’ smack with spic chicks in Humboldt…running ’round town with the last of the Irish hoods…money made in the day-labor racket….a nigga workin’ for nothin’….some things never change…

saw her over in Jew town…but Jew town ain’t Jew town no more…and the blues ain’t the blues and all that was now went….gone like a ghost in the night…gone…

and the fat-man went south after linin’ his pockets…left Chicago behind…set-up shop in another town…sure ‘nough a poem’ll be written ’bout that too…wait…just wait…

i knew Chicago…I knew her well….where did she go…where did she go….ain’t nobody talkin’….

the old man kept talking of this great love now gone…passed in the spring with snow and ice…just…rambled-on about this woman…

she never wanted anything for herself, Dad said…rocking in the Lazyboy,…wantin’ to keep her family happy…that’s all…, i listened…kept quiet…unloading dishes…plates…old silverware…

mom said you’d end-up back here, the old man looked-out a front-window…streetlights coming-on, all that galavantin’ ’round for nothin’…where all d’ya go…

all-over pop…everywhere…

well…she was right…gotcha nothin’…, he chuckled, what d’ya prove…

nothing Dad, rubbed my eyes,…nothing…,a butcher’s knife was put away…placed with other sharp objects…thoughts…

‘member the time you ran away…clear out to Los Angeles…what a screwball thing to do that was…, kept looking out the window…never at me…

mom said…why’d he go and do that for…, the old man started laughing again…,always wondered ’bout you…always…the prodigal son…

yes pop…right…, cabinet doors now closed…stuff hidden…

she always said d’ya end-up right back here…boy oh boy could she call ’em…

sure pop…sure…,i placed the house-keys in a fake-crystal bowl on the T.V. stand…one of those five-and-dime specials…opened the door…

hey…where ‘ya goin’…

for a walk pop…just a walk…

I see…

goodbye Dad…

sitting in Union Square…watching America go-by…walking on stilts…juggling bowling pins…howling at a yellow moon haunting Manhattan…yet i have no fear…

not scared of homeboys…zombies… speed-freaks… spice girls…junkies…poets…pawns…preachers…protesters…runaways…roustabouts…and those that have gone to ruin…take it in…take it all in…

listening to the gospel of Kerouac…sermons from the road…leading me…leading me…follow the mystic’s path…

hearing words spoken over jazz riffs…the myths… the myths…eyeballing America…face to face…she ain’t backin’ down…

I want a clean fight…follow my directions…when I say break…break…watch the clinching…now…go to your corners and await the bell…good luck…

no longer in cornfields…nor smelling sweet alfalfa as evening falls…in Midwestern hamlets where a god punishes…and there is fear…

this is not a new England…just one of old…with bloodlines and bank accounts praised daily at an alter made long ago…by Puritans…right…

sitting in Union Square…watching America before me…always before me…

ding-ding…

god is nothing…nothing….

God is nothing…

god is nothing…has to be nothing…

how’d you figure…this is wrong…just wrong…gotta be…

’cause if god was something…then god wouldn’t be a deity…right…

nothing…

nothing…nothing…nothing…

I don’t get it…

you’re something…yes…you are human and you are something…right…

yes…

and you my friend are far from a fuckin’ deity…

God is nothing…

yes…god is nothing… barkeep….

it was Sunday dinners with family and friends…bottles of wine…front-porch chats…music played…watched…only watched…

songs sung off-key…no pitch…notes stretched…never a chord struck…the clan had spoken…you’re out…

so…i watched from afar…mouth closed…laughs on cue…talk when spoken to…ideas kept…a foriegner…not blood nor kindred spirit…just a stranger in a strange land…

transitions…

and we go from dance to dance to dance…observing the floor…listening…looking for a partner…sticking to the punch bowl…collecting what along the way…

these choices are made…