Sunday, November 15, 2009

Rescued from Myspace: Untitled Poem

am i at the right station to catch the train i'm chasin'?
you tell me . . . is it just one of my phases, traces, ornate
races from place to place, cannonball-crazed through
this maze of worm-tunnels of the womb-belly beneath
this bawdy beldame, the city that i can't claim as home
where i'm still takin' chances? i fell in love with her like
one of those doomed romances.
she rode a wrecking ball through my poetry in one of our first dances,
raped my sleep-schedule like a lioness in heat,
laughed an icy gasp down my throat
with a January kiss to a reggaeton beat,
clenched me in her sweaty, dusky thighs in the August streets
right there where the juices run hot and the flesh tastes sweet
. . . by turns fiery and frigid, fitting firmly into the grooves and
ridges of my bipolar soul--and that's no small feat.
what makes me believe i belong here? i long to believe i can
be strong here, although i know i could go wrong here, become
just another outcast that the throngs fear, but i'm trying so hard
just to be here, to stay here . . . stay. please, just listen to what i say.
i want my poetry to be
what warfare is to a piano, like shooting a man
with a guitar solo, like ripping your balls off
and making you sing soprano
i want my poetry to be
the margarita-colored eyes of the 13-year-old street-rat
who sells me pot in the park,
to be tough enough to walk the Bedford-Stuy
after dark, to cry like an angel with
the body of a wolf, howlin'
like Ginsberg to Giovanni to Gilgamesh,
thrash like a skateboard-huckster kicking
apart a Wal-Mart, giving all the old ladies
a heart attack. am i on the right track?
you tell me,'cuz i'm still dazzled by the mystery,
still hassled by my misery,
still fallin through the shadows of my history,
stallin' for time still hustlin' twilight through a pen
that's runnin' dry.
hey, i only laugh when it hurts, but that's all the time--and you don't wanna see me cry.
i'm on a mission, receiving a transmission
that could drive like fission into the big dictators,
the master baiters who regard me with
derision til i'm screaming a revision
that's turning the tables, drive this corkscrew
into their souls, yank 'em out, tell 'em just for whom the hell's bell tolls.
write the runes of their doom on the walls
of this city, this bitch, this angel, this whore,this queen of mine--am i on the right line?
you tell me, 'cuz i'm running out of time.

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