I.
This city will never leave me—
etched into my bone
silk-screened over my irises;
when I close my eyes, I hear it
echoing in my cochlea
reverb & pain
shooting down my neck & back.
This city I see
I see it in my dreams
alive & always in the process of decay.
In the eyes of every homeless street artist
I see the shadows of cityscape
deep & dark alleys
guarded by long, sickly skyscrapers.
This air will never leave my lungs;
lugubrious, carcinogenic
bitter like old man’s medicine
keeping me grounded
keeping the flavor of smog in my mouth
rolling out of smoke stacks
down from the sky
to the tops of the hills
into the valleys
& into our mouths while we sleep—
This city will never leave me;
the sounds in Gov’t Square
unacknowledged penniless prophets,
too broke for beer,
holding cardboard signs with hands
beyond cleanliness,
beyond dirt.
II.
I got drunk once in Burnett Woods on hot tea & cheap rum
brought in a thermos to look for truth in the ripples of a man-made lake;
retired builders of the city wearing back braces
surviving on VA supplied pain killers spent the day fishing
& pulling in hooks plump with dead worms. There was no brotherhood
to be found among strangers. This city will never leave me—
they are all the same. Stanley Taylor remembered every tree he planted in the city
& the alley he slept in each night,
& the homeless shelters that peddled hot soup, shoes, & Bibles,
& the name of every liquor store attendant who didn’t kick him out,
like the daughters whose names he remembered
though they had long forgotten his.
Even illiterate men have a history
though they’ve never read their own:
primordial history recorded
in the drunken faces of broken men.
Every century just one more deep crease;
every hour just another pock mark that’ll scar over.
III.
Burrowed beneath the cityscape shadow
I dream of eternal mountains
continents of trees & fast trails
clean rivers & tall grass
to roll in with you
naked, hidden from view.
I dream of stars
of a night sky so full
the sun hides in shame—
a world without shadow, or cityscape
where all darkness & light are crystalline.
Your blue eyes sparkling beneath glittering shards of light
cosmic shrapnel of primordial afterbirth (the placenta is our souls.)
This placenta that is our souls infected with the bile of our birth
remains
even after this sausage casing quintessence of man
erodes
like the dust those storybook religions tell us we are from. There is comfort in being dirt;
we haven’t wandered far from home beyond redemption in the deep, dark park
lost in the heart of the city.
On these nights I dream
& the whole of creation finds connection
on my fingertips
& you
& I
are all that embody the sun, the moon, the stars…
IV.(a)
This air will never leave me;
born of trees & grass
& rolling hills southeast of the city
beyond the parameter
where the faithful squatters found Eden
beyond the 7 mountains.
Fertile soil with evil lurking
under rocks; settlement
& sedentary fear kept out
by walls etched with crosses,
and Earth broken by Baptist determination
[suffering is universal.]
Out of the wild lands
the air is clean
downtrodden
mixed with the blood & the bones
of 1000 indigenous generations
whose bedtime stories predate
our stuffy suits & corsets.
In the shadow of the city,
long like cement interstates, the air is stale
putrid with odor of bleeding pigs & rusted machines & the smoke of homesteads
being burnt by degenerated patriarchs
in search of insurance money.
(b)
This air will never leave me—
scent of drunken saints stacked up on street corners like rotten floorboards;
perfume of downtown office girls covering up the smell of slow decay
from between their legs (& hence, their hearts);
the pungent cologne of city managers
to stupefy interns to their shiny knees
the scent of old beer in clean glasses
& the lingering weight of tobacco
outside trendy Oxygen Bars;
back alleys & crosswalks;
blood splotched streets;
painted ladies who walk past midnight
hoping those prayers to Saint Alice
are answered soon.
This air will never leave me.
Not even 7 times 70 penitent prayers
& 1000 sacrificial infants in all their cacophony,
or the rivers they will fill like burial mounds
will set me free.
V.
Rain makes the streets feel crowded;
locals without umbrellas
huddle under overhangs to stay dry,
while downtown commuters
carrying wide umbrellas lumber pas,
running late from mid-day martini lunches
& casual office love affairs. By rush hour,
all the warm places will be open
& every barstool will be occupied
by the next great undiscovered intellect
& the last great artist
will be standing outside
cold, alone, and watchful,
filled with the lust that drives all good men mad.
Enforcers on horseback ride the streets
armed with lightening powered tazers
a frugal sense of racism
making sure to focus on the blacks & homeless junkies
after being given strict instructions to leave parking enforcement
to the topless meter maids in golf carts. Faces empty as the badge
that replaced their hearts they gallop down the streets with an apocalyptic pace
sounds of hooves echoing off the cold walls of endless skyscrapers, where,
in the penthouse office high above the sounds of trampled jaywalkers
Corporate masters & their academic lapdogs
plot the destruction of the collective soul
through instant gratification.
These are streets where no messiah dares walk
& cause saints to cry in their sleep;
these streets that will never leave me,
this city which will never release me,
& the grand expanse of rolling country
eastward & beyond
to the ocean I can only imagine—
like one long, drug-induced dream
which flows through my veins
thick with hemophiliac memories
who will never cease reminding me
they have made me what I am.
