and

back to back

with perfect light

pink

reflecting no days fading

with two

sunken in

on skin

Ironing

Ironing

the heat

on the bottom

binds new things

to old

like us

Goodbye, New York City

Goodbye, New York City

goodbye i say

goodbye youth, dad

goodbye big city

and those stain

glass

nightmares i used for pillows

the moon is in the icebox tonight

shit

no weather

no sound

nor wind nor clouds

no colors

no sunset nor sunrise

in the freezer all night freezing

shit

pirate ships race across the carton of ice cream

and make little turbine engines and fires in tiny garbage cans on the street in hobo garb it is always 1986 in the freezer dad damnit or something someone screams up the alleyway over moonlighting or thirtysomething or me crying loving the punch

line

the moon is in the doghouse no steeple-chasing stunt

coordinator

can pull this old tin can back on track with the clouds no

more neon

without a reason right—gosh what a waste that whole city

that whole place

they built that place to be meaner than electric robotic

snakes still

everyone is dancing so disney and i mean maybe i cannot see

it that

far away from the drugs i just see the scowl and the false

colored nails

building tops

like hammer drops

on snares on cymbal flares

signal fires and crossed wires

FBI screeching tires on tv

and no me

i am in my sunset dream in my jammies

jamming on cooked summer squash and

james dean milkshakes no milk something

else please

and totally happy now that i know

what a ghost is if it is me

and me loving a city that

lost grip of the edge of its

own higher floors mid-dream

the suspense not waning the

film projector spools out and

flap flap flap goes that roll and

we see just the white and really

no one is left to boo this

not me

not you

i am in a canyon now in love

imagine that and for serious real with

total conviction i think

i know

now

just

when to say when,

goodbye youth

goodbye new york city

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

New Gods

New Gods

soft dreamers feathered like bird monsters

us folks fix cars; lean against old motors in

gray dawns smoking cigarettes—fresh out

of the dryer washed blue jeans and some

old fucking jacket;

didn’t finish school—got gypped a grade—

too depressing

blue sparklers going off behind those dark

really too-thick-for-a-face glasses and so so

pretty for a loser;

i mean

america is spitting us out these boys/girls

america is making a new store for us haha

to work in—for

who will rob us when we are busy with the

customers?

i think it might be safe to say—with

red lipstick back of grandfather’s car making

out—switchblade carrying—greased hair—or

those long legs and that gingham-checked