from Empire Wasted
The portal pukes me out
Get up dust myself off and in all the sidewalk planters, mannequins with my old outfits on, tableaux of my phases.
Say a little prayer of my heart’s desire, Mom said.
Bare knees in the cement.
I got to the other side. Not another movie set but the only place I’d ever wanted that way—moist lipped, open armed, no nostalgias clanging around in my satchel like antique tins. I didn’t miss them.
I kneel past the end of the prayer and into the sting. The city’s in my blood and my blood’s sloshed on the stone. I’ll build a world this time.
Across from Clark Street Station
Sun comes out rain comes down
crowd huddled under awning
stringèd swell of 30s soundtrack
shower scatters umbrellas bob away
I think of Whitman of Crane
of Anderson (Wes) even of Pound
First flash flood of male influence?—
31 September Brooklyn Heights
It’s the light & the smell & the sound
I think they’d like
graybeard diver dioramist fascist
lovers of the moving image
rise from the seats beside me squabble
beneath the awning & scatter
The Shock of the New
that art it
burned me
with frayed
prongs
don’t
stick it in the socket
stick it in the socket
don’t
lightning
one of nature’s
number one
killers
aghast
I thought I’d die
of shame
at their unhinged
skulls
their feathered
mynxed
muffs
swinging
and sparking
in the armory
aisles