i'm here / i'm not here

in the stark outlines where
confidence bristled against dream against
faint phantom freight train adolescent knowitall
guru drugfueled mantra resonator confrontation mind
melter fuckhead i am
playing kick the can alongside coloring book designs
thinking to paint past the curb drinking paint drips
drunk on emotional alloys and intercontinental drift
subsumed in deep sediment

atomic clock shift
the seconds hand secondhand
thrift store timekeeper
and i can't summarize a life lesson when
the life lived feels epic format
drumming fingers on the unused dryer
philosopher in the laundromat
wet with time to spare
clothes tumble like emotional totem scraps
feeling like quarters out of an owned machine
an old machine functioning simply off the
scrape for green future possibilities

i'm inability calling itself maturity
lurid when the time permits
fluid as an iceberg
nearing evolutionary city limits
smashing through the hudson i've
arrived i thrive photosynthetic like
alaskan wildflowers wavering in an
endless sun
and maybe this clumsy growth has just begun

splitting poetry libation into its
common parts a marathon runner intoxicated
on the blurry scenes i pass by or
develop a path by
and fifteen years of composition notebook autobiography
is its own laughing adolescence and
on a mission of purification i'm
sussing out the essence

algebra

past lexington where they sell
couches for the beautiful people 20
yards away at Park ave near 11 identical
faux-gourmet delis and the
7 or so Halal trucks so close they could
wave to one another a stone's throw from mickeydee's and
madison housing the smell of charcoal
chicken skewers wafting almost delicate through 90
hairstyles and patterned identification pirouettes painted
on 36 casually insecure women commanding salon identities with
each concrete saunter invitation to 10 unashamed stares emanating
from couriers confident suits and starbucking lifers walking on
5th ave without thinking about walking on 5th ave i steal 5
minutes for an unpaid cigarette musing luck under 2 ladders
beneath infinite immortal indiscriminate scaffolding carcasses for the
endless construction of ceaseless manhattan material in the
shadow of el loco junkman pushing his daily scrap cart nodding
proudly at 3 doormen and clouds tease rain above 9 office monkeys dreaming
the same lottery comfort food fantasy and 1 minute to go i am
trying to inhale something permanent in a city that is always
changing and breathing
years
out i am trying to exhale something
transitive and inhaling unadulterated flatiron air i am
trying to do the
math

tide is high

diggin that
rocksteady
from jamaica
pure
and most
music is a faker
that's foolin your
cure

thinkin bout the sounds
of John Holt
the paragon voice
sweet like a sugar
thunderbolt
we carry on
lost in mixed elements
but the chunky guitar got my
fix like burroughs and
Griffiths singing bout the
sorrows in the ghetto straits while
the world shudders missing
Lynn Taitt
the heavyweight sound
with a feather stroke
it was never lackluster
when Kwesi spoke

bumpin Prince Buster
and misstepper modern pop hits don't pass muster
trust the
musty vinyl
sweatin island into trojan
miles of the unheard
exploding

i dust off a 45
hits me in the forehead
even mp3s leavin more dead
than Judge Dread on the radio charts
Alton Ellis arts speakin peace
from stages above cultural
rage til old age
dusty pages from LPs
tell a story of lost
misprints and out-of-print
allegories

but the curl of an upward strum
will save you
keep your dancin shoes drummin and
hum bravely
head nodding
babylon is here
it's broad and bright-eyed
we rearrange and strive
and somehow
we
never
arrive

sweaty dancer

soaped and moving matter the
music of disgusting food scraps mixed with
poison and the illusions of hot water
blasted against metal like a
dislodged scream escaping down
the drain

collate the hours spent staring at
porcelain transforming and remaining and
collecting shitty soapspecked boombox in
the corner spitting distraction at half-
eaten sandwiches and pancake inkblots tucked
in stainless steel corners while 6
bucks a fucking hour bleed like
the sweat down a sleepless neck

*

these days i push paper for quite a bit
more but drift on the slow
minutes expand and extend and
manicure each careful second distinguished like a
work of acutely belabored sculpture and
i'm good on the phone i
wear weird masks and
strangers on the other
line think i'm one of them and
tally my sweet voice and can't
tell that i'm just another
sucker

screwmug

reflex effect
brows clenched with 30 years of wrinkle i'm
angry or focused
possessed by insecurity or too
secure
defensive against the world
innocuously fucking with the populace in

quick
steps i

gather momentum against
the rush of walksign careful half-steppers draggin
kids macy's bags and man-purses against newyorker
nonstop get-there disease

manhattanhenge on my back grab
a free strawberry smoothie sample on
5th ave glidin in one
smooth motion carryin
comicbooks and flashed memories of too-cool asian sunglassed
skirtlegs outside
the k-town radisson sippin on a bubbletea
thoughtfully
drumbeat b-bap emerald veggie dumplings at
Mandoo round the church on
29th by the masterful dude tooling xboxes by the
halal joint where 1pm finds a crowd of 200 tourguides prone to Allah
soft-shoeing round transvestite towncrier flyerers pacing


er ummm i'm

dumbfounded but keepin brows clenched
like fists disjointed round stalled cabs vomiting
no-schedule professionals against gumtacked sidewalks round
scaffolding and badluck ladders i'm a cup of coffee round
the ace hotel under sunshower and british accents i
vent hostility
in: shitty workweek
out: lovin the wander and
just
chill

can't quit the cigs i need
smokebreaks to think
illnesses harmless
leak
out of fingers like filtering the beautiful
linger-philosophy when a million motherfuckers
stress about apostrophes & ownership i'm a distant character and
these moments are
theosophy

hereditary

easing down to think staggered by
a slope of pills and budget alcohol as
witness to what next

in the seventy degrees of summer evening when
the car alarms gather an unsynced symphony beneath fireworks smashed
glass anger and the ten thousand lonely Bronx hearts wired
to searching for hours into the dawn
balancing a whiskey into my throat wielding all
the colors of surrender the evolved form of
dignity with a chemical aftertaste

these are grasps gropes scrambles and
affected reachings to some
central and real guiding molecule hypo-
thalmus hypoglycemic hypnotic calming in the
blood like a soft hand soothes like a flush
of vasopressin it

creeps into the mood

shiva

shifting on well worn
concrete loops these jagged
paths of practiced instinct
honed, really

interrupted by
the shadow of an irrepressible bastard and it is
cyclical the way all torrents of sin rain down and
become like a flag unto death and
why not
shirk the shell for the
visitable scrutiny of the strained grasping evinced by
selfish youth handjob stranded in the murk of maturity like a stain and

then in strange moments of peace it is
as if through soft repetition the world opens and
decency drifts out and an impressive series of lies & fuckups isn't the
long grift of gray dangling in the backdrop a self-
composed religion of bad decision compost bedding down
new growths and tomorrow is actually stunning mathematics and
infinity and
gold-hued comfort and
stable chemistry many-handed and both

concepts

are really all there is to grasp at and
all i deserve