FOR THE SENSITIVITY IN HER EYES


V. I      The woman with the curled
              Black hair
          Focuses in with over-attention
          On the curved crack in the
          Barroom mirror,
          Seeking some distant vanishing
                 Point
          In the aerial
          World of images and sublimation.

V. 2      The gist of her mind
          Presses outward upon her
          Prophylactic
          Embryonic sheath;

          Her first stop:

          A point of penetration
          At which fantasies are mired
          And locked into reflections.

V. 3      The observer too near
          For comfort
          Inhales a mentholated
          Drag of dreaminess
          And then exhales
          And cancels out the effect of exhilaration
                Preferring to
          Watch her dress
          Slip up her thigh
          Slowly,
          Unconsciously.

             While the bartender
          Drones away
          Unsublimated -
          In futile disgust -
            It's his way of repudiating the
          Moment.

V. 4      If he fixed his gaze
          On the crack in the
          Mirror '
          The world would look the same -
          Nothing but a thin crack

          Where some object hit
          Sometimes in the past -
            The causes of curses
            And blasphemes
          Against a god of chaos
          Who dwells in bars
          To amuse himself.

V. 5      She turns to me
          And tells me that
          She's thinking of
          Poetry recited by
          Alan Ginsberg last night
          In front of a teeming horde,
          Most of whom
          Weren't even born
          When he was beat and new

          And now he's advanced in years
          And still ejaculating
          As time surges forward
          And institutions rotate
            Slowly on their axes/

V. 6      And still there's no reconciliation
          Between him and a nation
          Trying to cleanse the blood
          From under its fingernails.

V. 7      She tells me that we're all
          Psychotic
          In the way we revere
          The gashes in our psyches -
          That we've become addicted
          To them
          And open them bloody wide
          Again and again
          Each time someone relives
          The fatal shot that
          Brought John Lennon down.


V. 8      She says:

          "Who fired that shot?
            Was it him?
             Or the collective us?

           Or does it really make a
           Difference -
           He's buried under tons of
           Flowers
           Laid on his memory
           Symbolically.

          What's behind the art of laying down
          Flowers
          A year from now?
          In five years?
          In ten years?
          Or when the century turns
          And the sins of the past
          One hundred years
          Are forgiven
            Because we are our
          Own best priests?

V. 9      The bartender yawns through
          His copious mouth
          And grits his teeth -
          Another dizzy broad
          With curly hair he thinks.

          Too extreme for me.

          Who gives a shit anyway?

          They caught the guy
          And put him away.

V. 10     Why can't she just
          Come here to pick someone
          Up and get laid
          And forget the rest
          Of the world
          Like the other broads do?

V. 11     A crack in the mirror
          On the wall of a sleazy
          Corner bar.

          Furnished rooms on top.
          Lamp, dresser, bed,
          A table.

          Up there her instinct
          To freedom is found
          Surrounded by a
          Pile of dog-eared books -
          Ginsberg, Kerouac,
          Burroughs, Nietzsche, Joyce ....


V. 12     And stains on the bedsheets 
          From romantic fantasies 
          Of other sorts -
          It all flows out when too 
          Much is forced in 
          You can't keep your libido 
          Locked up in secret places 
          Forever.

V. 13     The guy in the mentholated haze 
          Plays the Doors on 
          The jukebox:
          SOUL KITCHEN

          I remember it from a night 
          In 1967
          When I was alone writing 
          Under a bare bulb 
 In a flat
          In the East Village.

V. 14     Let's go, she says.  
          There's too much pain here 
          But let's go upstairs 
          And maybe there will be 
          None at all,

          If we do things right.

V. 15     Don't misunderstand me.  
          I'm no cheap trick 
          Fingering away the curls of 
          My hair with a smile.

          In time you'll see through me
          Clearly enough
          And around me too.

          Don't think too much -
          Just come up with me
          And sometime much later tonight
          I'll make you a cup of coffee
          To sip
          As you sift
          The thoughts through
          Your mind
          While
          Idly handling
          The detumesence
          Of your inflated sense
          Of selfesteem.