Is it the possibility of
Some unforeseen yet magical
disappearance or
Of it being
Loped off
That makes one so very aware?
Erections must give great reassurance
Yes!
It is I
I am here
I am still here

Freud says that women want one
That they look down and see barren flatness and one fine line
instead of a mounting glory
A majestic rod
But I think perhaps
Freud is more afraid of losing his
Would that make him a woman?
I think not.
She is not on the right side
of the minus sign.

It must be a perpetual
Existential terror
The possible fate of Bobbitt
the Marine
Having one’s sliced off and
Thrown over the roof into the tall grass
Where the cops won’t go
unless the dogs go first
It’s so easy to do
Look it’s Mr. No *****.

One must understand this
From a very early age
And what of the consequences?
Shall we build effigies everywhere
Living spaces and statues
And talk about them all the time
And never learn
how to get the stream into the bowl?

Well look who’s here everybody!:
It’s Nice Try Huncke (drink)
It’s It seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time Huncke (drink)
It’s I wasn’t anywhere near there Huncke (drink)
It’s Yeah So What? Huncke (drink)
It’s I didn’t do anything Huncke (drink)
It’s You got the wrong cat Huncke (drink)
It’s This belongs to me Huncke (drink)
It’s I bought that downtown Huncke (drink)
It’s I don’t know what your talking about Huncke (drink)
It’s Really, You Don’t Say? Huh! Huncke (drink)
It’s I’m not carrying nothing Huncke (drink)
It’s I’m clean Huncke (drink)
It’s I’ve been clean for a long time now Huncke (drink)
It’s I wasn’t even uptown Huncke (drink)
It’s I never use that stuff Huncke (drink)
It’s That’s Stuff will **** ya Huncke (drink)
It’s What I do? Huncke (drink)
It’s Nah I don’t know him Huncke (drink)
It’s You can’t keep me here on that Huncke (drink)
It’s We were just talking Huncke (drink)
It’s He disappeared? Really? Huncke (drink)
It’s I’ll give you an An A for Effort for that There Huncke (drink)
It’s That Just Might have Worked Huncke (drink)
It’s There’s Nothing in my Pockets You Can Search Me Huncke (drink)
It’s What are you talking about? Huncke (drink)
It’s I don’t know him Huncke (drink)
It’s I’m just a poet Huncke (drink)


Can replace “drink” with “puff and pass” but no ****** you will die...

Time doesn’t exist here.

Have your plate
But please don’t touch anything on it.

You’re doing
your deed
You’re doing
what you feel
to be your role here
by Design

An Activation
of a certain characteristic of your’s
Where You feel like You have this
tendency to kind of
become radioactive
as well!

Tell Me!
What do you see
when you don’t see
What I see
when I look at you?

I don’t know what that’s alluding to.

Someone’s doing some digging
They’re really,
They’re looking into,
I’m hearing,
the Crystal Ball
But it’s not just like
Ha ha ha,
so interesting

I’m seeing
The Crystal Ball
has even its own ways
of stalking, right?

If we think about
a Crystal Ball
It’s like
Ok
We
We
We
Peer into
the Crystal Ball
We look through the glass

Places
and
Time
I don’t know what that’s alluding to

But it’s like
Even
The Crystal Ball
Ha ha
Has an agenda of its own
that is not really
part of the storyline!

It’s like
it’s so weird
I’m seeing
a Crystal Ball
as a character in like a movie
Or something?

Everyone thinks
Oh they just look into
the Crystal Ball
and that’s all they see
But
it’s like
The Crystal Ball
Has it’s own police report
That it doesn’t file.

Remember when this used to be a bodega where you could by an egg a few cigarettes and some *******?
I only bought **** there
a couple of times
I really went in there for milk or coffee
or an Entenmann’s raspberry danish in the big long rectangle.
I don’t remember the brand I smoked then
but they didn’t sell them.

The guy next door in my building had a thing for rich girls with flash cars
who would buy him clothes and other such presents
He was from the OC
and what he was doing in Brooklyn
I don’t even know
He got involved with some local
Columbians
Through the corner bodega
And of course proceeded
to date one of their women.
The OC Romeo.
Lady Lover.
Irresistible.
Pink Lacrosse shirt.
Turned up collar.
Leisure slacks.

I had to tell him once to not slap his thigh at me
When I passed him
on that corner
Posing with his newfound buddies.
And to give me back my cassette.
He tells me he left it out on the window sill
And it rained and got wet.
I said give it back anyway.

Not too long after he was gone.
Both he and his yuppie roommate
I heard he moved back to Newport Beach.
I wondered why he ran
Cuz I know he ran
Fast
I had some crazy neighbors in Hollywood
who disappeared
into the Russian night.
Someone spotted them a year later.
Playing with the wrong people.
Taking liberties.
Conning a con.
Your life really is not worth
very much
in those circles
so you’d better be quick on your feet.

I’ve cried a lot over you
It was a nasty break up

When I left I said
We’re through
And
I’m never coming back

It’s been 18 years now
And I’ve seen and heard things about you
In the meantime

And I have to say
With no ill intent
That you have really let yourself go
I wasn’t prepared for this in coming back
It’s ironic because it’s why I left you

When I washed my hands of you
I consoled myself
With thinking
In fact
Knowing
That you were a *****
Who gave it up too easily
Or a monster like Frankenstein’s
Electrified on a table
Not quite dead
But not quite alive

A friend once said that you were
Always nicely coiffed
But walked about
With a long trail
of **** smeared toilet paper stuck
to the bottom of your superb shoe
Scraping under and behind
And unbeknownst to you

I’ve walked and walked
Everywhere
With a book
So as not to look
Crazy
And I’ve sat waiting
For you to appear
Suddenly

I’ve sniffed the air
For you
On this street and on that
Stalking you really
But you were gone.
I sat in that park for a long time

Washington Square
With my little book
After
One short story or two I closed the book
I left
There’s nothing here.
You’re gone.

The first time you made me stop
in my tracks completely
I was bewildered on First Avenue
heading south
It was long ago
Now I realize that it
was
a premonition
I was suddenly lost
I stared at the sign that read
K-I-E-V in neon to my left
I told myself
“You know where you are”
“You know exactly where are you are”
And in any event, keep heading south
“You know where you are.”

Upon my return
all these years later
it happened again on Canal
I stared hard at elderly Chinese couples
Hoping for eye contact
which I never got
Looking for an answer
An explanation
Their strategy for survival
Is this Co-Existence or a Time Loop gone WRONG?
How many of us are actually ghosts?
An old boyfriend told me once that they don’t like you.
And neither do the Poles.

“Is this the real life?”

I forgot until quite recently that
Not so long
afterwards
in Astor Place
I thought about you again
I thought that you must have moved over one block
West
But that’s just not possible.
It really is you.
This is you.

So casting you to the side
as I have done
As I had done
Will it help me at all?
Has it helped me at all!

Now I wonder if you are
a captive monster
rendered impotent
by steel and concrete?
Or a jammed low frequency
that dulls the mind
which Science won’t render mute?
Was it a healing potion
The perfect ratio
of
**** and **** and rage
That was
The Most Holy of Trinities?
Spurned and now this

If we made it again
A perfect batch
Could it re-start your heart and keep it
beating?
Like the Doctor in the stormy moonlight?

Do the tides help at all?
I don’t miss you if that’s what you’re thinking.

Laying around
about the dorm room
Bored
Looking for quick
Stupid cash
We came upon a listing
My roommate and I
in the local paper
Artist models needed
No experience necessary
That was key

The guy on the phone was chirpy
He lived
Close by in Oakland
He gave us directions to where
He would pick the two of us up
We
Would take the bus
He would be in a station wagon
Beige

He met us sure enough
Old
Old as the ******* sea
Formal suit and tie
Maybe a hat
We drove back to the apartment
And entered
First my roommate
And then myself

A ****** yellowed set of rooms
Where we will be heading to the right
To the kitchen
I’ve noticed the battered ***** *****
Mattress
Also
To the right
Stains and an attached clamp lamp
A single stark bulb

We were greeted by an even chirpier young lady
She was like a baby Joan Jett
All rocker black and leather
Sleek hair slicked back
She seemed somehow to like
really really old men

She took over and reached
for the plastic folder
She handed it to us
“You need to look at this before we go on
This is what we do”

Obediently, we cracked it open
and peered inside
Bent over we studied
Sticky plastic pages
Of brightly faced girls
Page
After
Page
Smiling with awkward innocence
No bright eyes nor youthful effanescance
No desire
Nothing wet
Except their palms with thoughts of escape
And 100 dollars

I only remember the girls whose makeup faded around the neck to betray
the true color of their flesh
Not flushed at all with sticky expectation
They left no impression in their nakedness
Ghosts
Shades
They should have been in class or doing something else

But our Joan!
Joan was a star.
Her photos were full of sass and delight
She was more than happy
to show you her ******
Over and over and over
She said
Actually
it’s a club
The guys pay a monthly fee
And they come here and shoot
In the apartment or maybe outside
They cannot touch.
There is no *******.
Mostly they shoot
Me.

Alone.
A Pixie Star.
This was were that old man’s money was.

I don’t remember what she told us
What she used to do before
this had to be a moment
A rather short moment
She would move along because
This kink was overstuffed with
impotence
and ineptitude.
Kink that might be easier to deal
With
On a properly lit stage
Or a quiet motel room with the shades drawn
Cash up front.

But for now
She was the enterprise.
And what would he do without her?
We three giggled and guffawed
in the little kitchenette.
We weren’t game for the arrangement.
She knew that.
But she liked to talk.
Men like that are pathetic.

Seriously why would we do this?
All those faces in the book!
Four on a page
Excitedly, we thought that we recognized
One or two
I know her!
Look I know her! I’ve seen her
in the Poli-Sci Building!
I’m sure we did not know any of them.

The mattress.
I could not fathom what happened on that thing.
I don’t want to know.
I had to look the other way as we left.
Did he perform
Abortions?
With hangers and kitchenware
Can ******* be that messy?
Just opening your legs?

We said goodbye to her!
She was wonderful.
She would sparkle forever.
Joan Jett!
Piling back into this hoarder’s
station wagon amongst
the musty boxes and newspapers
strewn all over the backseat with us
He drove
to the bus stop
A waste of his time
Disgruntled
Failure

He asked
How should this ad read
so that
this doesn’t happen again?
We offered no suggestions.
It had been fun
However idiotic.
I don’t remember
how long it was that
we kept our bus trip
secret.

My art
is the way
I re-establish
the bonds that unite me
to the universe. -A.M.

Before she fell
They were
Hated
She, for her sudden rise
And he
in turn
for his shaggy, loping omnipotence
The sure-footed authority
marked by silver squares heading nowhere.

She was the little Visionary
and he, the Blue Chip
So very messy
The Tall and The Small

If you were sitting at the bar
Somewhere around Mercer Street
And those two came in
“Ugh”
Went off inside all the heads
in their line of sight
A palpable mental groan
As they hung up their coats
And waved at various tables
Making their way like penguins through
recalcitrant faces
eyes focused on a glass of beer.

Again, it will all end badly, we thought
Nursing our drinks.
Tonight

Piling out of the last bar
brawling on slick cobblestones
under the yellowish streetlights
of Prince or West Broadway
Arguing about nothing and everything
“I will out run you Old Man!”
You could hear it bouncing off the sidewalk like reverb
Whispering around corners
“You will be surpassed!”

Birdgirl, I too look to eternity,
he states full of drink and exasperation.
I step and step again. I am walking there.
I am not a bird and you will see that I need no wings.

“You will be surpassed!”

Blood and more blood
A face planted with busted lips
Flattened
Your body crushed into the earth
Over and over
Having fallen
Waiting for burial, entombed in flora
Welcomed
Reclaimed
To be disappeared
But not just yet.

What had you unleashed Mija?
What did you already know?

I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!
I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!

In editorial spreads
we saw flared American jeans in Rome
You said that they understood you there
And in Cuba too
We understood you very well right here,
you know.
It’s not so hard.

The doorman said he heard someone cry out
And then a soft thud a moment later
From the deli’s rooftop next door
Crusted guano
Broken, forlorn and misguided leaves
Cigarette stubs with pinkish ends
A stray tabloid cover page and that
peppery NYC grit in your eye and nose and under your fingernails all reclaim you to a concrete womb
Welcome back!

“ICARUS DOWN” read The Post

How easily we lost our envy
after those 34 floors
Earthbound
Strait shot

It was all foretold in the telling
Now folded into a history of sorts
That of an earthy primordial Fertility cut short by a ruddy man
rather than a thousand  compulsive chalklines drawn around a singular and knowing corpse
There are ramifications for deals
made in feathers, b lood
puddles and mudlood
A recipe for the
reunion of force fields
Folding you back within its arms
Where you belong
What an excellent day for an exorcism.

I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!