New York Epilogue...

...for z harvey

a $30 cab
brooklyn
to brooklyn
should i even tip?
certainly not the shortest route
but he did have three stops
aw fuck it
merry christmas mr. raza
middle of july

i'd come from a good bar in a too hip part of town. a bar that sold me british beer the way it should be served: hand pumped into imperial pints with a side of crisps. salt and vinegar. plus the empenada man showed up. but he ain't got nothin on the tamale guy. chicago tamale man. now see that's what made the second stop so hard to take. the chicago... not the tamales. not the man.

tonight ny city is losing one of its finest to that third coast empire. that breezy town i love to complain about. that frigid bitch of a city i fuckin hate. that midwestern mecca that will always hold special place in my heart. a city perfect, at least for a time, for a good southern man i watched get out of a cab at 5th and 20th brooklyn time and disappear into the night. the night spent with people i love. (with people who might just love my girlfriend more than me (but really... can't say's i blame em))

27. homeless. unemployed. i feel that, son, i feel that. i know where you comin from, and in this case i know where you goin. know it better than some ain't goin just are. i know its midwestern mexican, its hazy vague southside, its meat markets, donut bakeries, warehouse theatres, its 4 am beer bar holy grails, its northside stretch 'a long streets deserted at nights 'cept the occasional old timers bar make you feel like small midwestern town all wood board and darts marked only by slow swinging sign out front. old style. exactly.

i know it. did my own time. cracked her wide open. now it's his time. and so off he goes. that man among men. the one faced challenges we'll never know because they was his and never meant to be our own burden. faced challenges hid behind face 'a joy. he will be missed. he will be accepted. welcomed into other open arms not our own but just as warm. but for him... never warm enough. 'cause none can ever be quite so.

27. homeless. unemployed. for some folk - and usually the good ones - ain't no better way to be. i feel that, son. i feel that.

Don't Belong To Every Choir

each song a profane prayer
a dirty joke
an anthropological six-day drunk

amblin in and outta towns with dead leg limp and lazy eye. roll. roll it round. roll it roun yo mouf. cigrette slowwwwww shtep. shit. done an gawn. oh gawn you jes flattrin. flattrin me i keep comin round this place to be overhearin all a kinds a my peoples but do i say a thing? naw naw naw i am in affect choo AL! eastern european cheese farmer tired lawyer granny smith apple drink maker! these is all the sort's my peoples but do i speech? do i throw a hey hey hey!? naw naw naw in affect choo AL! shiiiiit naw nothin like the sort i should go home and drink for free wait...

- i's s'posed to have a pipe shoved up my ass. i mean, you're asleep an everything.

- it's still a pipe shoved up your ass.

...my folks' liquor cabinet ain't but bible verse crochet and best wholesome intention so "free" ain't quite a right "cheaper" now yeah thas the word drink fo cheapa cheap cheap cheap sang the little birdie bird so's like i say go home and drink fo... aw shit "home" ain't right neither god damn if i don't keep gettin stuck on the words. i s'pose it means i oughta get another drink and make a few more false courage friends. or maybe jes another drink.

i come back to the red shirt girl with black hair accent a southern and tits all a big doing pirouettes on the back deck to not quite a plause to igor stravinsky to social distortion to everthin else and nothin a t'all wouldn't i mind settlin myself between them an all. an other and i ain't nothin but a listner. frank. frank listner. pleased tuh meat cha.

a stum bull back
the mutant faced child
looks up in wonder

So Proud To Be Alive

bird faces, iced hair
pink and white
tights like sex
of the unknown kind

south loop train stops
for college girl mysteries
for high skirts
hiked up high

like the first minute of
a public transportation porno
stop after stop after stop
getting more and more

dense crowded intense
faces tired and hispanic
black and beaten down
young and hormonal

this...
is chicago
birthplace of house
and of slam

of improvisational
of sound design
hog butcher for the world
mecca of and for the midwest

"voices of broken hearts,
... voices singing, singing
... silver voices, singing
softer than the stars
softer than the mist"


blues brothers sunglasses
spring time's 'a comin'
and on a mission from god

New York A Love Song - 1 of...

it all makes for a wanting of one day living in that city the same and such that's never needed me from the first moment i stepped foot from train that liberty's statue had passed before onto under and deep into station fantastic from a gilded age surround. that once niuew amsterdam of stretched islands of perfect harbors now brim-filled and shock full of eager wanting next stop chasing and oh did-you-hears the ups are greater than the grounds. that summer spent city of evaporating summer streets drifting upwards in nostril full summer heat filling insides out to the point of knowings and to all points and beyond. and that city blessed city seducing and still after so many years the wantings still there and different no less strong coming from dark corner insides hidden in hiding for one third a life lived out well if not long. the city of a thousand languages in chorus wavelengths of shouts and whispers of cheers and psalms.