In the Blue Note

 

In the Blue Note
you are so sad
your monkey raincoat on.
Your lunchbox with the circus train
gone quite gone again again.
You on wrong side so long.

The snow she no know
Stalin is dead.
Neon throws three roses to the frost.
A mauve cat jumps.
Is lost.
Jumps again.
O Maundy Tuesday! O chalice of rain.
Snowghosts mother the windowpane
Sighing hey down a down.

February! February in the Old Town.
How nice and sad and sad and nice
it is here safe from all harms.
The bargirl's little tits
and when the whisky hits
the nothing you love falling,
falling asleep in your arms.

Chiasmus in Chicago

 

When the pals of rain come
I know just what to do.
Grab a bottle.  Get Old Blue.
Belly crawl across the linoleum
Get under the bunker bed.
Drink till Old Blue is dead.

Then the pals of the pals of rain
and Lamentation Junction
Me want to be sleepy head againe
Another Extreme Unction.
You're a good dog Blue.
And I am too.

Spilling the universe againe
Wild about Harry
The Cubs behind 1 to 10
I will never marry.
Pals, my pals of the pals of rain
I will never marry againe.

Especially not some slushlaced witch
Blabbing upon a peak in Darry
in Californio!
Not unless she's goddamn rich
and I'm drunk againe
and horney O!
and Thelonius is monkerin
and we are sweetly hunkerin
and the rain falls like stones
on our marrowbones.

Trio

 

At the Starbucks next to

The Barnes and Noble where

Somali cabdrivers huddle in winter

And where last night

I sipped a tall hot chocolate

And read some poetry

The guy with the black overcoat

And the shiny shoes and

The look of what

The look of money looks like

If you are that kind of guy

Asks the poor women across from him

“If you don’t mind me asking

How old are you?”

“59,” she says the poor woman.

“I have six grandchildren.”

“Your time is now,” he tells her.

“All the rates go up at sixty.”

And she must have told the guy

How much money she had

Because he says “You are in

An excellent position” and tells her

That it might seem ok to have your

Money in the bank with their

So called guarantee but do we

Really know if the worst happens

Is it really guaranteed and

Six grandchildren that’s wonderful

And there are some funds where

She could put her money.

And I am reading that Frank O’Hara poem

“Autobiographia Literari”

That great poem: O’Hara the lonely child

The orphan even birds flew away

From him and then those great last lines

“And here I am, the / center of all beauty!

/ writing these poems! / Imagine!"

And I laugh out loud.

And they both look at me

Like I’m crazy.