“New York is the next Disneyland,
darling,” said the vendor
old veteran toothless
pitching pictures of World Twin Trade Towers
remembrance to tourists with clean white sneakers,
“Clean your room,
it looks like Ground Zero,”
said a father wearing shorts
with a Pennsylvania Dutch accent,divorced from the pain and the punch:
two fists
knock out
two front teeth--
All a vision from Avalon’s summer shore,
Waiting for hell’s boatmen
Floating across container-ship harbor
going to face the wasteland of Arda--
Notoriously drunken sailors
Operating Staten Island Ferry
wailing, like Allen said forty-seven years ago
Serve in the best tradition
of mariners and the private sea--
On board, Lola dreamed of a Technicolor city
Dots of colored light
Scattered on surrounding skyscrapers
we cross again to valleys of spectral screams
eight doller cigarettes and chick Radioheads in luna lounges--
So, “stand clear of the closhesh drurrrrrrs,
bing-boong”--
Bowling Green station
can’t take one-nine no more
Midnight August
Air thick melting all of hell’s humanity glue
screee--scree--screeeeeches,
bing-boong,
wrong train--
doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou
dotdepression
dot NYC dotorg,
free treatment
in research studies at Columbia University
Liberate your money
Save water,
Read the signs
Alongside
Sleepy late-workers
Goin’ home--
Mid-town,
Times Square
I felt weight
all over my head from balls of sweat--
No one else saw the shoeless man
Laughing
Behind George M. Cohan’s back
In the dead center of Broadway,
Media lights-way,
lightswitch, video-picture, 21st century scenes--
Ten after one
Monday morning relaxing
Ass on cement
Hands behind his head
Shaking his bare foot
side to side, rested on his knee--
We left half a can of soda and stale pretzel
Two dollers each
for the hungry, for whoever could get them first--