N Y C

Washington Square Park the old guard
are kazooing out of the woodwork,
sidestepping, tambourine in hand,
the gaps of gum disease and cool
to gather like some lame-ass carnivàle.
These juvenile geriatric wannabe Bart
Simpsons shout and spit roach butts,
sing First Cut is the Deepest, rapture
off this decade's mortal coil back to
Woodstock, poor old disenfranchised
hippies. They make Ob La Di sound
like the Anthem for the Doomed
Youth, they grunt and shake,
jazz hands in hands with acid
flash backs, children of the garden.
The rain comes, they shelter under
the monument and sing through blunt
yellow teeth and watch the fountain.

Below their tattered sneakers, rumbling
of the subway, pirate dance troupes
jump on and off steel carriages
and tumble, spin, hustle change, beat
box, swap shoes. In the corner,
an old black man shakes his walkman
like a maraca and croaks along,
eyes shut. Uptown lady gets caught
in the closing doors, head lopped
off laughing by the wall as the L
speeds out of the station. I hold
my hot hot dog between my teeth
to warm 'em. I sleep on my
girl's shoulder, she feel my tongue
rattle on down the train tracks.

Later, Broadway's cloaked in mist
that condenses on neon Coca-cola,
golden arches, Hellow Dolley, M. &
Ms. M&M copulating above a crowd
of buck-toothed English tour-bus tools
holding Guggenheim mugs. I dance
at the periphery to Beyoncé piping
out of the Times Sq merch-marts,
like some MTV clown, ticket tout
shouts "Do it, white boy", I laugh
across the black and white stripes,
the white man says walk, don't
bump your head on our yellow
traffic lights. I turn to look
back down the street and see
la femme jolie qui sort with me
lit up like a saint in LCD,
red, blue, yellow, fauve aphrodite.

She takes my arm and we go
NoLIta TriBeCa SoHo NoHo,
glowing dough ambrosia, serenaded,
fed, spun, flipped, bloated, wind-
tossed, gripped in the concrete arms
of this mad grandfather, left
to drift in the rock pools of ancient
Manhattan. Wild trolley bums
rattle past in baseball caps on cell
phones, vendors pack up thinking
of their homes, and we head for
the sound of saxophones. Greenwich
Village is all sex shops, blue notes.
Stray jazz men want your love,
Toys in Babeland want your lust,
it's dizzying and flamboyant, glaring
street lights blur with rain as we
stumble down the steps into the club.

When all your paper money's gone
the city churns on, orgiastic and
brave. By tomorrow all the scraps
of litter, the tramps under the bridge
by the river, will have been inhaled
and blown off down some avenue
to wilt and shiver in the morning
light. For now, we get our coats,
leave a tip, walk out, and offer up
our fragile bodies to the night.