New York Poem

NEW YORK POEM


Up the New York stairs, on up
and past the naked sleeping woman
in number eight.
Who lay there lightly
in her night dress,
and was known to cry out. Tip toe,
and unlock my door to Gerald Stern’s
lovely poetry house.
Cold water kitchen and bath,
and to the right the dream room
where the desk was.
My heart then would carry me
to the front window,
and open it to the September night
of the dying of my marriage.
Music and dark sweet rum,
and wait there for the sleek
and obsessive little outlaw.
With her strawberries and rope,
chocolate and masquerade eyes.
To reduce my sacred world
to its basic anti-elements,
press my temples in orgasm
to collapse my memories.
Drink liquor from
the sack of my testicles.
And repeal the great poets.
Her never-enough existence panting
like star breath on my pillow.
Between the cocaine and
the disintegration of the senses,
holding her vibrating face.
Masturbating together in the half light.
She lived then in a swing in the park
down from her house. Seven years old
and twitching her legs together,
like a hot cricket, honey,
she would say. While her eyes went vacant
and I thought of my wife,
so far away and in pain. Closed my mind
to that death as a soldier does
who enters
the dark house with his gun.
And next day, she lay there
like a ceramic vase
in the light of noon,
pulsating flowers in her center,
long stems in my watery floor.


Barry Tagrin

Posted over on var count = "glenn1944"; // Change Your Account? var type = "cold"; // Change Your Counter Image? var digits = "9"; // Change The Amount of Digits on Your Counter? var prog = "hit"; // Change to Either hit/unique? var statslink = "no"; // provide statistical link in counter yes/no? var sitelink = "yes"; // provide link back to our site;~) yes/no? var cntvisible = "yes"; // do you want counter visible yes/no?