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.

14th & 5th: A Poem, Before the Magic All Turned Black

14th & 5th
***
saturday afternoon splattered with tuesday paint
off the pathtrain on 14th & 5th
follow the rush of wind up the stairs
shades mask the wolfish gaze
stepping into a maze where
walking is like wading waist-deep.
sleep abandoned me, hypnos and morpheus
are on a hunger strike, leaving me
lean as a wraith, hungry like cassius standing in line
at little caesar's, hungry for a poem
like a slab of broiled animal flesh on a bun
. . .or maybe just the animal itself,
something i have to hunt down while it's hunting me
like lon chaney with a hangover.
something this dangerous shouldn't be so much fun
something this turbid shouldn't laugh, or cough, or
walk, or run . . . a philosopher's stone, stoned
and tripping on the heat-shimmer ripple
over sizzling sidewalks and street-corner alchemists.
i feel like i could survive on the air itself,
something i could reach out and cut into slices,
priceless and poisonous and a thousand times more
carnivorous than any lean and tawny frame
leaning in a doorway. eyes
cut slices of me, a little piece for each,
plenty of spectacle to go around. i'm just
part of the whole sideshow, you know, not
freakish enough to steal the whole thing, but
snapshots of my own, apple peeled down to the bare core,
down to my favorite incense store
where the shopkeeper kneels and faces the east
his eyes focused on something i can't see.
i feel like i should take off my shades
and stand in the sunlight, gazing up in awe
like a tourist, another visitor. it makes me feel
naked, but i won't turn my eyes away, and i
won't pretend that i'm not amazed.
this is like a book i've searched for all my life,
and if tomorrow finds me half a continent away,
it won't stop me from turning to the east
several times a day
to the mecca i found. or maybe it found me.
or maybe we just met each other
on the street. i won't look over my shoulder,
i know what's following me, and
what i'm leaving behind. when everything catches up
with me, i guess i'll be right here
where i still don't know if i'm going to be able to
breathe, and i'm terrified, holding my breath, but something here
is doing my breathing for me
and each lungfull is just another poem waiting
in the wings, and another poem
is stalking me. thank God
the pen is still mightier than the sword,
or maybe they're just two ways of looking
at the same thing.
perspective is a piece of fruit
on the branches of this unknowable tree,
and something that holy is dangerous, but the fruit is ripe.
i have so much work to do.
the time for harvest is now.