Obscure Bogart gestures
and Hemingway
in the good sun
wounded and stoic hours
take their toll
like this hard sidewalk
cracked beneath
worn shoe leather
and if you’re lucky
some woman
somewhere
might have a tattered soul
to patch your pummeled one
in the dance
between drinks
and betrayal
and you walk on
stealing looks at strangers
just so and dangerous
gliding in your sharp fedora
looking for her everywhere

I’ve realized too late
that life is too short to not
be Janis Joplin

she was in the corner
reading Gatsby
and we were all drowned
and stupid with youth
the play of beauty
on a page was everything
and she was in the dark corner
reading Gatsby
as the guests danced
and drank in the light
she was unaware, golden
sitting in the corner reading Gatsby

There is a movie theater in my head
that mostly shows cartoons
and grainy  previews
of coming attractions.
My favorite stars you
lying naked on our green couch,
sipping lemonade,
and thumbing through a magazine.
The magazine is inconsequential,
but, for the record,
it is called Cat Fancy,
and you linger
on a photograph on page 46.
It's an old movie -- a classic! –
though I never really
saw you naked,
and we never owned
anything together,
and, as far as I know,
green couches
are nothing but myth.

This world once had snow in it
and used car lots
***** lampshades and photographs
of inspired 1916 Bolsheviks
the world had tigers and punk rock
and drugs to make the young girls
sling sweat and dance dance dance
classy dames with runs in their stockings
drinking cheap whiskey
straight from the bottle
the world had red hair and poets
even Sylvia Plath
just imagine a world with trees
or something beautiful
almost no one remembers
but that's how it was
under these cold and constant stars
such a long time ago