The waters break in two

And the drainage

And

sewage

from the city's backwash

wash over the spectators

who always watch from the Hudson.

There is no need
to come up for air when one likes it better down there.
Looking up to the light through the deep blue waters
and watching the silhouettes of everyday people
in their everyday cars pass on by without a kind word.
Down here the body is more than just rooms
where evictions notices are always waiting.
And the grave is not part of a time share
"Sorry man but we have to move you."
In the subways,
the trains pass by
without any signs of kindness
or collusion
their lights always look to pass through the next tunnel.
They are ghosts of former slaves
trained for decades to
serve without speaking
without connection
to anything permanent.
They know how easy
the voice can become a ghost
just out of the reach of the camera of need.

These trains carry loveless businessmen
in their loveless cars
to loveless homes.

This is the America prairie
where the Buffalo are insane taxi drivers
looking for a fare to take down town
refusing to take you
home
uptown
at 1am in the morning.

2

I found the remains of real New York

Washed up on an Island that you will never find

On an atlas

Or a map.

There was the marquee

The letters still attached

By some miracle

XXX Johny Wad The Shadow Points Forward

The ghosts of Max's Kansas City still high on speed,

bitching about the cheap chicken grizzle served from the kitchen.

CBGBs hit land the other day

refusing to be an exhibit in Las Vegas

under the lights of vulgar temptations.

and Phil Ochs still weeps for

the failures of his generation.

Some where a radio was heard

and Bob Fass was still talking to Abby Hoffman about the trial.

Among the garbage heaps the crusties still

Move like costs of a dead city

Where even dumpster diving

loses all meaning.



3

Kaddish for my mother
who escaped herself
and the confines of the skull.
after her operation.
I look for you now
a month after the incision
willing to swim far bellow the sheltering light of the surface.
It takes a special metabolism to swim at these depths
(where even most fish disappear or swim above your head)
only to return to one's ruin
or the prison of a body strapped down
in a hospital bed
where the walls have become too familiar.

Now that your mind has turned back on you

releasing everything that you thought

was left behind like yellowed newspapers buried in Fresh Kills land fill

and forgotten

But even the dark Noir shadows can't hide the imprint

of a mother whose words were designed

in an unwelcomed

winter

to keep you locked in that cage

attached to electrodes which are set to go off every hour

on the hour.

I thought I found you the other day

with the tubes and hoses and wires connected to your arms

Through your nose and on your finger tips.

It turned out to be a jelly fish

That passed by without acknowledgment or kindness.

Are you moving toward the wards?

Are you prepared to be consumed by the ward?

A friend of mine escaped from there

with a letter from my wife.

Are you ready to welcome the lightening storm

The electricity which washes away the demons

Born of your mother's winter

with its gray light of harsh words

which cuts as though they operate on instinct

and perfect precision

and they do cut deeply with serrated edges.

Or can you tame those indignities
which you thought were dormant in their rooms far below the line.

When all the tiny terrors which you have collected run dry
then all that is left behind
in that well
is ruin
and the fear of facing the rest

of your life

as it all comes crashing down on you.

There is only so high

that you can rise

to escape

Her

and yourself.
This is your greatest art.
breaking down
hate
to its purist form
till it takes the shape of a bullet
which always hits its mark
and you find yourself
strapped down in a hospital bed
and spit flying off your lips
as you surrender yourself to another fit
of rage.
Rage is the purist form of hate
and quickest way to find your self peering
from the other side of the metal door
always locked.

Last time I saw you

your demands became more fierce

"Hurry up we have to get outta here!"

"Go where?

There is no where to go."

"I don't know.

Why do you make cry? Tell me!"

Behind these demands

you were a young girl

still on Long Island or

Brooklyn

waiting in your room

for a letter

which reads

"Body avoided recall one last time, mind still burns with guilt."

but the demurral must have changed the door number

since the letter has yet to be delivered.

The only escape now

to placate these indignities

which come at the cost of a ticket

to the tiny dramas which you have perfected

to a fine art

and now must forget or be consumed by those memories.

Don't you realize

that the old man

is waiting for you

on the other side of

those surface waters

of lucidity?

This is no sacrifice that your going through.

What debt did you think you were paying off

And

And what price are you still will to pay?

We must all return to the surface

every once in a while.

Later Insert Part 1

We spent the day at your bed side

but you had already left the Synagogue of the body

because there was no more room there for you.

The recall of the body came after all.

The landlord of disease came with his notices.

Our flight from New York came to late.

Your leaving came too soon.

Later Insert Part2

I have grabbed rage's brush to paint

those lines that separate the heart from memory

to avoid being consumed by your story

which fills all photo albums

each moment caught in the still frames of

photographs

of winter

and Summer

in Brooklyn and Long IsLand

in its black and white skin.

All your smiles were false

The beaten animal of a mother's contempt

Which sat behind your eyes like an unwelcomed pet was true.

Under the silent watch of the GW bridge which I see from 173 St.

I yell to the empty sky

What plan required you to weep in the time of cancer

as the body turned back on itself?!

What plan has left my father to drown in America

where there is no time to sit Shiva?!

Later Insert Part 3

Do you still walk among your indignities
as if you were walking in a bizarre
shortly after a war fought
for by those demons who
you could not drown with all the cleaning fluid you used
to keep your home clean
and
where everything is on display
in this naked market.

The last time I looked into your eyes
half opened
they were like two blank screens
with the curtain partly closed
a mechanism must have failed

Here

All of your wasted years take the form of
merchants who are willing
to keep your insecurities alive
while your name is stripped away at the hospital
under the cross from the building which stands in silence

From outside your window
and with the finest equipment.

It (your name) has become a served limb now found
in the rats nest of your dying plans
of living again in the eyes of your granddaughter.

They (the merchants of wasted years)

are always willing to make a deal

To sell to you all of the mistakes

Which could never be wiped clean

from what you know.

No deal will be denied but no price
Which comes at the expense of the body could ever be met.