Sirens blare, beats seduce.
Hearts boom and wrists streak flame.
Beautiful B-girls resist cat calls and college
We sit on stoops with tall boys,
our inter-connected worlds, glorious, dangerous and small
Fifteen and the skinhead near Union Square baptizes me
He spits cheap wine in my face, hair, eyelashes
Soggy and foul, I become
a disciple of: defiance, sorrow, blight
Daedalus journeys from Palladium to Bard
wearing AIDs
He offers me a yellow rose, no mental hanger
I refuse – then meet his ghost
Veteran Mike, homeless, burns a fatty
on the steps
of St. Marks Church —
his rambling riffs scorch New York sky
with Saigon blood
The Mohawked barmaid at Danceteria falls
into the elevator shaft, she falls to her death,
wailing all the way down:
“Degenerate the faithful with that crazy Casbah sound…”
And I dance through summer’s leaden night
with fairy-dust
sprinkled on my nose,
which then bleeds rage and desire for decades
