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

JAMES RUGGIA

In Cavafy's Alexandria

the same moments keep finding

and then abandoning the same

tormented old bastards hunched

over newspapers in cafes.

The stories just confirm the flattulent

sigh that life is; the same money

stolen from the same fools

by the same bastards, over and over,

the old man wipes coffee

from his lips, moves his ass

in the chair. It's his soul that's pissing

him off, that bag of gas where

the unerupted erections of his youth

collapse in wards, drool on drop

cloths for the desires that created them,

abandoned them for some Olympian

ice palace in the cloud

[Originally published in NHS 2003, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs03/ruggia.html.]