Slumming.
Slumming around downtown.
Slumming around downtown St. Paul.

A broke high school student.
A broke student with perpetual down time.
A broken down senior student letting go of time.

Slumming.
Slumming down to Raspberry.
Slumming down to Raspberry Island.

Walking across the Mississippi River.
The bridge had been raided.

Marching.
Marching down teal and raspberry stairs.
Icycle nose hairs.
Seeing my breath as my chest shivers.
I found my heart trapped under the solid river.

Teenagers ******* about freshmen that got the bridge raided,
Teenagers ******* about artists they've always hated
and artists ******* about things they've created.

Underagers slowly letting out smoke.
Underagers letting out what keeps their lungs beating.
Underagers slowly letting out steam, cheating.
Me.
letting out smoke that came from the ice.
Smoke of below zero temperature, freezing my insides.

Mindless.
Mindlessly walking.
Mindlessly walking through endless skyways.

Mindless.
Mindlessly talking.
Mindlessly talking about things I don't remember.
Until we've arrived at We-Be-Smokin'.

Huddling.
Huddling in a group.
Admiring the art that claimed the spot before we did.

Scuttling.
Feet scuttling.
Feet scuttling in place to outrun the cold.

Reminiscing of months before when I was sitting alone in Starbucks with my
venti white chocolate mocha listening to crazy George yell at his imaginary
wife. Not being bothered. Not being cold.

Ran into an old friend  - uptown Friday night
She'd had too much Tequila - Must say she looked a fright

"I'm feeling  old and tired; don't care to be alone'
She asked me if I could -  'would I take her home"

Her directions led us home - to the wrong side of the tracks
To a place  that long ago I swore -"I'm never coming back"

"Do you remember hon ... you gave me my First drink"
The tears came so heavy -  I was afraid to blink

Those last words she spoke - still searing in my brain
The pain so hot - I thought I'd go insane

"You drunks say the coldest things - but blame me if you will'
' I'm gonna need another shot to rid me of your chill''

"For old times sake,'  I said - 'I think we should go 'Slumming'
"Down to 'Old Town' -  like when we were just sixteen'
"And you were the prettiest girl that heaven ever seen"
"I don't know' she said - 'It's not like I remember'
'The lights are brighter now -  the streets are nice and clean'
"Not like when we'd get our kicks...
Watching Hoochie Mamas hooking up with Tricks"

"And you, I asked... 'What do you remember most
About those endless nights?'
"When our minds bemused of reason - reason took to flight"
Sober now, she spoke softly ... of times I see in dreams
She said ..."I remember the Poetry you wrote for me...
So long ago it seems"
"On the walls down there in 'Old Town'
" Like OUR lives... now crumbling down"

a)  i am the mortar incurring blow after blow
     from the abrasive quality of your negligence.
      no, i am herb between pestle and mortar
      the full realization of 'rock and a hard place'

b)  i am the mortar between each brick you lay,
     in blue collar glory, or rock star slumming,
     to bind shaky corridors of past serenity
     and bear indiscretions on my limestone shoulders

c)  i am the mortar you fire before crawling under covers
     for inexpensive *** and trashier beer
     by a lake on a camping trip where tents trump love
     like the queen of spades in a hand of hearts
      
d)  in fact, these are false, merely possibilities --
     actuality: you were never enough
      to make me spew homonyms in metaphor
      because you were nothing like them,
      always appearing changed but monotonous in meaning,
      and if you're so into contraposition,
      are we not but names for each other?

I pretend that your poems and 
my poems go
slumming in disguise;
carrying on in dark doorways
of riverfront bars—
tipsy, telling secrets,
spilling out into the sweet-smelling
night,
libertines 
more in love 
than they were before.

Yes, it's holidays in summer,
No books, what a ******!
Chicks need light books for lit.,
Mental slumming, that's what I call it,
Yes, recreational reading,
Books for older  girls is what I'm needing.......

First may I apologize for
The womanizing,
And
The shallowness.

Call me Ismael

I went whaling once.
Not -- on the high seas
But, at Big D’s, Gillys.

I went downtown, and around town
Trying to -- get down.

I needed a Moby to my ****.
So I went searching.
For the meanest, biggest, foulest fish in the sea
And there are plenty of fish in the sea

Trust me

And four or (fourteen) shots of tequila later,
She’d consumed me.
Like, Jonah.
I was inside her.

And the only way I could get out was a smoke
And I quit that **** years ago.

I woke up, my muscles hurt
My head hurt
My heart, still hurt.
I looked over and there she was
Lying naked in the covers
Suddenly, my stomach hurt.

As I hung my head praying to that porcelain god
I thought back to last night, and who’s lips I was kissing
I remembered tasting yours, not hers
I remembered your eyes, not hers
I remembered your touch, not hers
I heaved up, your memory, not hers.

And like that you were gone.
No longer did I pray every time my phone rang
That the phrase would be “1 new text from -- “

I had deleted your name in my phone.
The letters were just too pretty.
I tried changing the fonts,
They looked good in every typeface

Hell, you made Webdings look good.
So I had to tarnish perfection.
I had to delete -- perfection
And I sat there, head in the bowl,
Removing every last bit of -- perfection --
from my stomach. I smiled, broken heart and all
I smiled.

Went to film school, want to be a filmmaker still
My dream unfulfilled, but still unfolding
I look at what used to inspire me: magazine articles about
the great directors.  always male. even today.  I used to want
to be the female version.  Not anymore

The New Yorker has a piece on one
Describes the process: a demanding scene where
Julia Roberts walks down a street and then gives a LOOK
This is not drama.  drama is conflict.  the new yorker doesn't know this
describes the making of "art" as the shot is repeated with different LOOKS
It's all taken so seriously: a large photo of the ARTIST on the facing page
He has four o-clock shadow times a few days.  this is the look of a filmmaker
you will see it in the second half of the semester at any film school
and he looks worried, intense, confused...gassy?  artists are never happy
is life a pretty picture?  the artist knows this and cannot, will not smile

Later, "the Brille Building," in New York.  wow.  a building with a name no less
a building where many films are edited, have been edited over the years.  
a sweatshop for editors of picture and sound, and a place for the director
to continue, now out of the shadow of the STAR

He's using a lot of profanity now. Just because he's an old white geek don't think
for a minute he ain't kool, he ain't street.
Actually, go ahead and keep thinking that, because you're right
Amazingly enough, he, from his heights of artistry, is slumming it with take-out
Oh, the dedication.  Oh, the fear of ever leaving the building and being reminded
there is a whole world outside that doesn't care about you

His brother is the editor (no, don't say there is nepotism in this business, it's your imagination)
They review the shots of THE LOOK
There are many takes and now, this director who adapted someone else's novel
to the screen now claims, he wrote it.  Really.  It is all his.  

Yes I still love making films but I've never loved the biz
And as I get older, the more I think that real artists don't get written up
in the New Yorker with such verve because they'd think it was just too silly

the charm of French Colonial style
   with Cajun cooking promised -"genuine!" -
   at every second door
jazz bands at every other

the flair of well-groomed wealth and savoir vivre
   exuding from St. Charles´ porticos,
   the restaurants on Calle du Roi,
the campuses of Tulane, UNO, and Loyola

the grandeur of the superdome
the open space of Audubon and City Park
   oakes draped with Spanish Moss
alive with jogging, skating, biking, walking health
   between the nights -

all this makes you almost forget
the city project housings
slumming beneath the highrise business shadows
   crime ridden,
floating on neverending waves of dime-a-dozen tunes
from hi-fi stereos of cruising cars

the grand lake spoiled for generations
with the big city's waste,
the 'father of rivers' dwarfed beyond repair
by wharfs and cranes and fortified embankments
that line his banks as far as you can see
   and far beyond

a shotgun wedding of the rich and poor,
   the black and white,
   torn by the struggle to ascend
   from shotgun to colonial
to the soft sound of dixie

              * *

Old souls like me may just remain present
The throwback, old days manifested
Souls with ways out of style evident
Thinking like the world is infested

Old souls slumming it their very own way
The ones who still do things like the did then
Still keeping it classy every day
People who study the ways of the men

For oldest hearts and classic souls, it stays
It’s worth the standing out, the ridicule
Doing things the good way, the way that pays
Old souls don’t make fire, we make strong fuel

Old souls who keep it always fully class
Old souls like beautifully lit stained glass