H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s
b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i
v e s E d i t i o n
STEVEN HIRSCH
Urban Verses
Held by the city in this way:
sweet Sophie Mang the cowcat queen on
left white sofa arm
white cathair tumbleweeds
waft across 40s
parquet
Italian chef Molto Mario Batali
on the right arm
TV stand kneading pasta
[you know I can’t help but say
I ran into him one day on 6th ave.
a while ago and you know
he was a really nice guy
in a hurry, soiled chefcoat
half-buttoned]
My own homemade pasta is
just as good as Pó
or Il Cena Colo
My ragu as sweet and
savory
and it’s Wednesday to boot
‘whatever’ spaghetti day
come get your macaroni and gravy —
Held in this way
the city glows
it's steel edge
cuts through it’s own history
to immediate perfection
in every gray slice of life.
***
Woke my Reiki
on E. 21st St.
soft gummy bagel
was the worst of it
could I be the key
to wake it up in you?
Noisy bakery
Soft curl of almond smoke
imprisoned a la mode
within patterns on
the back
of a croissant —
Wisdom books yellow and
universal symbols diminish
yet bad coffee can always be found
in some damp bodega cranny.
Reverse the polarity
and draw energy from this
grid – every itch being scratched
every lid trembling
around it’s
brief dream.
Sophie curls tight in
an Amazon box
Empire State Building
casts a purplish
glow
on her white fur.
***
Sun strobes on steering wheel
through silver winter
branches;
drive to the Park
& Ride, take the Bus (Buspirone á la Shortline)
try not to get on the wrong line
jungle ramp mimics
Port Authority mad slow escalator grunt
— gray suited
apes swinging from
painted steel rafters
to vie for the
window seat that
reclines properly.
On the other hand, again and again,
there’s the Palisades
dysfunction to the West Side Hwy,
or the L.I.E. to Queens Midtown Tunnel
among other savage
commute routes ever to rattle an axle,
Q104FM salvation a butter-salve for my
Hudson-Ganges infection
and tooth-gap Manhattan skyline pout
missing teeth caught
in my throat
again and again —
Jimi jabs his axe into my guts
I rush decide to resign my package design IT job
in Carlstadt
and take a more urban position
Fear up the spine on first day of work — sofa
raconteur interruptus
Mind in flight broadcasts a mayday
Skycap oasis resonates like a Dodo
Rival men raze Troy as the schmatas
fly
extinct as Ratners' herring on Sunday.
You turn up your collar and the music
in your very expensive chrome earbuds;
To work for a living at a job that fails to
satisfy
is highly overrated
except the mortgage
says otherwise and Big Bank will wring you
dry if you try to refi
so turn it up another notch
and pour me a double Gentlemen’s Jack
and sit back on the couch.
I think of Joe Roberto
biker friend lost on
9/11 in 1 World Trade
as I put my bike away
for another winter, dirty —
wonder what exactly
he is missing really
in this city
in question now
as is this
elusive anxiety —
cured by a bagel
with Nova and cream cheese
twice a day for 38
years!
Two dark squares in the concrete waterfall
as freedom tower skin’s applied
and we lift from our knees at the wall —
New York is it’s own antidote
self-liberated.
Meanwhile, holiday cards still arrive
at 10048 phantom post office
for those ghosts that time and discount Bulk
Rate
will not surrender.
***
Insurance, man,
insurance is what gets
me
it just gets to me you know
insurance… man, it just
gets to me
you know – you know insurance,
you never know they say
you never know when you’ll
need it but damn, insurance
that shit just gets to me
runs in the family.
Grandparents, father, all shunned it
not a penny maintained to sustain a legacy
after all these city
streets were
paved with gold
mica flakes in dark concrete shone
so many little and big lies twinkled
there on the street
in between gum spots
and cigarette butts.
Concrete slabs wired to the teeth now
in Greeley Square.
They know your shoe size
and what you had for breakfast as you walk
through
There are no guarantees
at ground zero.
Strange lights glow
from Korea-town
manholes
and I'm hanging on insurance, I'm just
hanging
on insurance, hangin'
on and layin' low, trying not to
anger the premium
and further harass the underwriter.
Only undertakers triumph as children fall to
assault rifles.
Bloomberg collects a gun a day so Mort Zuckerman
can preen
his hat's half feather with a half-page
feature.
Tempt the fortunes and fates to temporarily
evacuate the superstorm —
gravitas envelope
descends and the Mayan calendar defends its apocalypse
in the face of subsistence existence being
forced upon Brooklyn,
a tri-state tsunami decimates Staten
Island and
mold emerges
victorious.
Only insurance separates the family
from it's home.
9/11 vets chorale around the christmas tree memorial
as bulldozers push their homes into
mountains of
lost memories and identities.
***
Baked yet hardly awake
Farley post office lines are comet tail streams
among the façade
scaffolds
and we are falling dust
little bits of
citizens being found
in sewer grates day to day
years after the
towers’ collapse —
gray steel wing flap lift, found like hidden
faces at the foot of
a gray mosque alley trap, burned gray
matters to ash, turned beards grayer
to sift old cells through the gray dust at
Park Place —
That day — that day
so amazed at the goddamned fucking West
Side Highway
a totally empty, mid-morning barren ribbon
to oblivion
for a moment shocked to be alone in my
escape
made it to the GWB
in about 6 minutes
that day
rubbed my eyes
and the goddamn traffic reappeared again
like magic!
The bridge was closed so I looped around on 9A
and
when I hit it again it was open outbound only
Holy fucking shit I thought banging on
the steering wheel
they will give a pilot’s license to just
about anybody!
Holy fucking shit I cried
as I curled onto
the empty Palisades
they will give a driver’s license to anyone
nearsighted or far
and anybody can
blow themselves up
but I swear
my brakes
and broken heart
are not the same
since my Palisades
escape
that day —
Cannabis detox to
climb
the job ladder
scrubs old resin from brain
leaches from fat into
pee
I jitter and fret, purge and sweat the interview
mannaquin pose stone
face dictates your fate
‘we regret to inform
you sir
but you are an old
gray
pothead and cannot be
trusted.’
So why not open a gourmet food market?
Maybe a rock shop or hobby depot?
stock Radio Shack
electronics experiment kits
lots of stuff to
solder together and shit;
this lapidary,
poet-chef sings a gray blues,
slings sizzling hash
in tune.
Cast your jones in the
Harlem River
like a dark lure
and be in good
company
the muck and mire
turns under and
rolls out to sea;
learn now the ladder
leads nowhere man
at least nowhere
you want to be.
Gonna quit my job
oh yes, that’s what I’m gonna
do
gonna quit and move uptown
to another job that I’m gonna
wanna quit too —
Alas, poor me — pulling 6 figures
& miserable as a
chocolate chip cookie
on a china plate
everyone diabetic all
around me
sick of me and by
me too
and my spicy ham
& egg on an onion roll.
Late for work and lovin’
it
cayenne pepper sauce
on my moustache
later I will blow it
burning out of my ass
and think of you
old thorn in my
side for whom I sacrificed
my true Broadway
calling;
for a string of
kiss-ass peon jobs for peanuts,
subtle doom and daily
struggle,
keep up or fall
beneath the wheel
pay through the
nose, skinned at the knee
given an arm and a
leg,
a delirious
amputee.
[This poetry is
a rescue
from the death of
all dreams.]
***
Craigslist monkey hoots his crazy beef,
‘Rants & Raves’ get really sad and lame;
the bargain you thought you gained on that
USB board
turns sour when his
UPS tracking number
is bogus as a purple dollar
and you want to put him in traction.
Your red face bleeds grief
for each and every ‘Missed Connection’
each plight as common
as an arcade token
bent in a jimmied slot.
The shakedown continues
as the streets of April
turn hot and the pickpockets
come out of hibernation
to twist their elbows into
finger hooks and hand
blades —
squeeze into packed
subway cars last on
to lift the cash you just made.
***
Brushed by on the street
by someone who
obviously knew
where they were
going
“so what” I say, they’re
deluded
and we all share the same delusion
so it basically works
yet not too difficult to see through
chinks in the armor
dreams in the gutter
sour gust heads north to some suburb or
another
runs in cheap nylon distracts you at the
curb.
They put up a shiny new sign
at the corner hot table take out
and scraped off the
health dept. stickers
—
still, you eye the
black beans suspiciously;
desiccated pale parboiled
bacon strips
and pre-prepared egg whites on a silver tray
like plaster frozen on a trowel
fail to appetize;
nuked on demand
for scary FIT undergrads
in very tight underwear
who always look like they’re arriving
at a goth picnic
with a bag of melba toast.
***
Max Parrish photo barks from
wrought iron kiosk
mismanaged buildings
crumble
and spark —
The furriers eat peanuts
and florists stack tulips
in long waxy
boxes sporting windmills —
3 steps away
a homeless guy wretches
into a trash can —
Old bulldog squats
on a subway grate to poop
pink hairy dog boner
wags in R train wind —
Outside Mickey D’s
the guy makes unintelligible, snide comments
to me
his stench combined with
greasy burger and
bulldog shit
enough to make me
drop my Post
blanch pale &
dizzy on
26th & 6th
.
I swallow this tender weakness
this humanity
over and above all fragility
bemoaned
as it is left to us
and must be made
less hollow
like the icy wind that
gets under my gray wool coat
no surprise and yet ~ oooohhh
~
to hold that poise,
an instrument for winds
that race down 7th Ave.
is to crack the monster minor 7th
of these blues;
smell burger and
turn corner
back to the wind
and a
brighter step.
Evening walk destination: 34th st. Herald Towers apt.
in old Hotel McAlpin
where 50 years
earlier my father had his first
secret dates with my
mom
upon whom the disapproving 50s could
find no hold,
when the city was a mere 7.7 million of us
in line with debonair ruffian Lindsay
pre doom and gloom — in between the waves
of chaos, tide of grey coats rising
toward Penn Station.
***
Two pigeons peck a kernel of
unpopped popcorn into
traffic —
I ran over a white one the other day
— puff of
feathers
in the rear view — did a mantra
or two but I didn’t feel bad,
inured to daredevil
pigeons that plunge
into midtown traffic —
Allen would say ‘open up to
raw warriors heart! — HUM HUM
HUM!’
maybe someday I’ll listen.
Cooing from the window ledge
wakes me from a dead
sleep
I walk downtown over
bouncing basement doors
—
Rats dance in cardboard kitchens ankle deep.
***
Old webs bind me
into a
numb chrysalis
await my
rebirth
at
some later re-emergence.
City’s insomnia
keeps
one suspicious eye
on
all who aspire
to
change
or
arrive to the party late.
Sirens chase us
back
into blackened doorways
wings
folded.
Taxi headlights are eyes
like gems that blink and flutter
with each pothole and metal road plate.
Steel trashcan of old lunchbags
bursts
into flame
draws us
out
into
the night again
to
attain
fractured
flight
& pull
free
finally.
***
Walk and call, traffic through Times Square
slows to a crawl
sidestepping Mickey, Minnie, Mario and Buzz to get to the bus
tune out bible stumper Jesus-fuss and a hundred tourist cellphone
cameras
clicking everywhere to capture that New York angle
only to paint targets on their own backs —
scammed on hot dogs
and cab hacks' detour through rushhour park tangle.
Walk and call; even with “LOOK” epoxied into the street off the curb,
some cannot tear their eyes from their smartphones,
trucks and taxis
growl down 8th Ave. — inches from impact.
So much more disaster is averted than we
realize.
Need to wake this small mind from its charmed
oblivion of steel and glass
and heal the cracked hearts and streets of
the city; [Dai Koo Myo]
city that bleeds and rumbles and moans,
city where I was born and that I am proud to
call my home.
I hear the low frequency rumble of echos buried deep below cobblestone.
I hear the bleat and blare of tragedy taking
corners too fast
and pieces of desperate reasoned
conversations that waft
from backpack cafes and alleyways, wisped
thin as the job trail fades.
I am the first one in to work these days,
I eat lunch at my desk with one hand on the
mouse to keep my seat.
Cracked economy keeps us walking and calling and
not looking.
Held by the city, by the sonic, sacred, scarred
and nascent city.
Walk and call and cut through the small talk —
Just walk or just call and that's all!
Mask of rage and fear please fall away
Let it complete, ease and dissipate
— resolve into Maitri.
May work anxiety dissolve into “Just don’t know”.
May money fear release into “Just don’t care”.
May I someday stop hating my x-wife
she got hers, you got yours, everybody got
theirs.
May those I love find their balance in life
Walk away from hate — numb and weepy
stoned or straight —
nobody cares.
Walk with your heart on Earth's stellar
shirtsleeve.
Everyone you meet is your rebellious child and
mother
designed to be loved
and tamed by giving wide berth.
Walk through Times Square whirlwind open-armed
stripped of pretension
and innocent faith.
Walk to the corner of 42nd & 8th
and become enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas.
Till your ‘maters and your peppers like a good
suburban farmer.
Walk 500 lives as a fox in a state of grace.
Walk as a child of illusion tempting fate.
Walk till you simply cannot walk any farther;
Time changes your face into stained glass
losing self — gaining
self — it all comes ‘round again at last.
Walk ahead though you’d rather wait
or run & hide in the park like Jonah in
the belly
of a great whale, lost in the gray noise
spell.
Live in muddy water with purity like a lotus.
Let it all go and just be exactly as it is,
block by block —
and sure enough
the dark gray sky
opens up.
[Originally
published in NHS 2013, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/_special_edition_nhs_2013/.]