127 Ludlow

Another night at Ludlow's indifferent mercy.
The silhouette of a crazy man smokes and stares
in the entrance of one twenty six from across.
His thoughts are unknown to young sanity's might.
Their self-entitlement reek the silent amount
of their wages. Each stifling encounter
weakens a civil man, until he is manifested
into a tooth clenched animal ready to wage war.
Only piety and reverence to things loved
renders him from losing one's un-renewable heart
and keeps him still, braving the storm intact.

It was just yesterday I saw clear skies, a serenity
from a window view, in a fourth floor apartment
In Bed-Stuy. The edge was softened, a poem was
recited, at times an electric chord was strummed,
a daring film had been consumed, along with
my own humble refection, and a delight for
what is in store: A hope for annunciation by a
Bare necked swan. To be lifted towards rebirth,
to forget that muddled unintelligible sidewalk,
to remember that Helen does await abduction,
and a battered deserted city seems far from sight.

All is right until a flick of a tube or screen serves
its inadequate function, cooks its lying brew,
drunken maws froth and blazers smugly grin,
chuckling, thinking that they've won.
I realize and know their age! An age soon
to swallow redemption whole and I will be done
with dreams. So I sit firmly planted on this stool
and endure, I observe that bitch success illegally
smoke, I clean the transparent blood after closing,
I drink to their indignant exit, mercifully waking
nodding heads, begging them to witness another day.

May your souls drain the wax running, hardening,
into the excrement of these contrived times. May
your bodies be flooded and washed with the rising
of the tides. May my body be rinsed out along with
the rubbish. May the sun dry and burnish my frail
bones, steeped in the en-flamed light of passion.
Until then, light their cigarettes, know their age,
smile at their pity, and pour their vices. I make a
vain attempt towards the forgetting of shadow,
the crouching wild eye insane, intent on searing flesh
and reigning the newly born priest of a skinless world.