For Gil Scott-Heron (I'm New Here Too)

I'm twenty-one years old
and you seem older than the hills
yet you're new here
and I feel ancient.
We're hard to get to know,
I agree, but I'm easy to forget,
it seems. I'm waiting
to write poems like you, Gil,
I'm waiting with the mist
on my mind, floating
up through my nostils
on the midnight wind
in the magic hour. I breathe
deep and clean until
my vision is shaky
and I can hardly stand.

Then it comes to me:
a thought floating out
of the night (which,
in the city, never darkens)
and I catch it
- my perception is acute,
even if my will faulters.
I draw the enigma
out of the orange sky
of smokestacks and gazometres,
overpasses and bus shelters.
I pick it from the corners
of billboards and from
under litter bins, between
a sleeping vagrant's teeth,
pull it through the blades
of a local green
and into the road
with the pigeons
and drunken stories
gathered up from
newspaper clippings.
- Her with her tits out,
with all the opinions
on me and you, everything,
better she tells it;
I wouldn't be taken
seriously, no second glance,
they may as well have
seen straight through me,
I do, anyway.

That thought I had,
pure as the gum
on my shoe: I picked
that up somewhere too.

I've gone pretty far
now; I have to make
it look intentional.
I did it on purpose,
I heard a poem
on a street corner
and made a turn,
blind as a farmboy
in the age of bluesman
who played slide guitar
and women like cards.

I'm here thinking this
in an old place -
it's a good thought
and I'm new to it.
I'm having fun
so I'll make
the rules up after
I've summed up
the scores, let's
see: one to me,
a handfull of revolutions,
a record deal and
fisherman's hat for you.
Let's start over;
I've got troubles
like everyone else,
no eagles on me,
no broken homes allowed,
we'll keep our voices
of reason, we can
always turn around.

Shooting from the Hip #2 (Blues Bar)

Man, I had the best time at 20

- I didn't care what anyone thought.
I asked, "You've changed since then?"
No; if I had, I'd've gone mental,
been thrown in hospital,
therapy and all that, I tell you
one thing: I fucking hate Woody Allen.

- Photograph by Sharp Noir, August 2010

Nostalgia

There is a hazy time
when catharsis is therapeutic
but this self-indulgence
is bound to induce stagnation.
When a strong man,
one who is heroically individual,
is swallowed up by fictions
– precluded, altruistic jubilance
over the prize of mystic love
from a good woman, the belief
that, had the dice rolled differently,
he could have been saved
from himself, his consuming misery –
he is truly defeated
and nobody can help him.

Then again it is pleasant
to see the lymph rise
from an old wound
with the pump and vigour
of a youthful heart
too often thought lost.

Picking over our memories
is not time wasted licking
our sores. Reflecting
in the westbound waiting room,
we take pause and attempt
to gather up our resources,
devise foresighted stratagems
to meet all exciting new contingencies,
bid to never again run and hide
from impending calamities
or any vexing mysteries
approaching our lives.

A Cold Reflection

A cold reflection on a mirror pavement wet with rain,

I wink my violet eye,

My collar high against the wind.

A dried out roll-up on an empty stomach;

Any comfort, as I roam the streets.

A willing conscript to sign in rhesus positive

For some fleeting belletrism,

I chase the success envy believes me to be,

Like a marionette without strings,

Drowning in this lazy river

Of tepid ink.

A heartbeat flicker like a wasp in a jar:

An alternatina teenager

In tyrannic nothing-dresses.

I court a frankenstitched friendship,

kiss her sweet-sweat neck

She somehow avoids arrest.

The laughter of sidemen from behind their instruments

As i consult the haruspex;

I suggest the motions of a wanderer;

Any disproportion of whisky could kill me,

Waiting in half-assumed stances.

Some miracle of adhesion:

I watch the shirt buttons strain across her bust.

I prefigure my hands in frustration

My guts in a twist

As trying to turn a needle inside-out.

Pin-stripes on all sides as two colts climb

Through ten paces;

I flash a bruised smile

Flip a table smashing glasses left and right.

I raise my .38, plug one through his leg,

He falls to the floor,

another in his chest,

So he knows he’s finished.

Sharp Noir (Part V)

Rubix reported a lingering dread

- an idiosyncrasy of this particular

model, although a noble sentiment –

filed undisclosed natural causes;

we all know what that means.

They’ll gibbet Cassis as an example

for striking pins at this level:

life isn’t all beer and skittles

when dealing decks a fatality situation.

Alone in a hotel room,

a light whisper of a night-train

flutters just above the roof,

taps enough to imply the wind

and talk of the sea it’s from.

Picking at the nightmares between

reality and dream, Cassis, half-

sitting, may become a regular

footnote stranger, dissolving tears

in alcohol to avoid making a scene.

Havoc has been wrought

on his midbrain by alternating

sedatives and stimulants.

Rolling up the tag like

a little newspaper, reining in

a bucket from a mossed well,

Noir retrieves a teabag

from Cassis' mug.

We imagine the procession:

two files like heavy curtains

breezing each other

as the mourners wobble

in their short, slow steps;

Rubix smoking because,

like most actors, she knows

not what to do with her hands.

In our darkest reflections, of love and death,

our thoughts are potent with the Colonel.

Sharp Noir (Part I)

As the cold takes its first length

of claw to the back of my neck,

I steal a last look at my reflection,

cast through dark sunglasses;

the extremity, phone-booth

cigarette glow castrates

interminably the light

behind these Modigliani eyes.

I slip out, receiver down, between

shards of rain, into the ceilidh

of the street instigated by

the auspicious deal-making of sirens

with the rapid beating of the strip.

With a face in barbarian tribute,

I walk a film epic gait, without

any weakening of the spirit

- my stance is preposterous

as I slip in prevalence around

silver, gleaming death machines.

They turn wheels into their slides,

laces spry about my ankles,

at once mock at and traduce whilst

free from muteness and retreat;

steerers go foetal in their seats,

framed in primetime terror.

Alligators: their meat is considered

a delicacy. The collective envisage

a body in the road,

strewn in grisly attitudes,

for the power of the dead is

they see you all the time,

as a voyeur inflicts introspection

amongst complacent hosts.

Emitting phrases of interest

at the back of my stride

that neither blocks nor coarsens,

they signal onward in an

empty, corporate way, wonder

why they were all so afraid.

As the length of my line

is somewhat determined by

the width of my page, I come

to rest, as a religious zealot

who kills for the closed logic

of belief, I yell finally,

“Late Edition, Herald Tribune!”