Out of the sprawl slouching through the money jungle –
a sound like feet on stairways going up and
down never stops and love is a doleful saxophone
in a cubicle room. Some things are not the way
they used to be – electric islands with plastic
freakshow madonnas, feathers, sequined half-moons
and teeth or cellophane. Days pass in talk before
rain sweeps tail-end in off hurricanes. A whole nation
learning to stand on ceremony wiped off its feet.
Will we ever find happiness here? The crowd
groans beneath the underdog, seething with crime
and we are crawling beneath Atlantic Avenue into the red
swollen eye of night. Finding philosophy at a
discount in paper bags, stalking the hairy dog
in the park and the Sunday Man who looks at nothing
but sees everything you see. What use are maps and
books for staring in the dark? Behind the
Orpheum Theater, y’re writing a letter to the world
in somebody else’s handwriting. Alone you declare
an end to all government. The rats in the subway
vote to jump ship. Those who know, buy umbrellas,
wrap their prayers in prophylactics
waiting for the fog to clear. All night we listened to
dreamless tides sweep the collective mind, turning
everything to debris. Morning and scavengers
bide their time. As the camera pans away, a light
can be seen in the diner at the top of the hill.
The slow music of TV aerials plays us on, swaying
to the old tune. Shadows lengthen – it seems
further than it ought to be. Arriving late, the woman
behind the counter is laughing with her mouth
wide open. You place yr bets and get what you paid for.