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by John Clinton


IV. SoHo

An early summer sun striking white & black
cast-iron facades reminds me of Paris in July
models upon tourists upon tourists upon models
step in & out of the trendiest shops on Spring
Street, housing hidden art galleries that find
me uninspired, rather than painting my mind

An all black barbershop quartet, one
with a stand up bass, sing the Temptations
“My Girl”, to a mostly ambivalent audience
“I’ve even got the month of May with my girl.”
continuing to walk alone with my throbbing pen
the moist paper waits to be consummated in

SoHo once was underground cool, once over
thirty years ago when SAMO was not dead yet
when Jean-Michel dragged himself through
the cobblestone streets at dawn looking for
a perfect balance to be shot between his untitled
(skull) where the paint has long since dried

V. Lower East Side

A violent purple was the color
of the sky, Heaven’s gaping hole
was waiting to smack down on
to the pavement, rats with yellow
teeth are gnawing on chicken bones
under Norfolk Street dumpsters

Where the big clock sits & did
not tick for timeless years, as I
waited every day in seething pain
paranoid of police cars prowling
the block like wolves in blue
sheep skin unaware of my shade

Dim lightbulb faintly illumining
Dominican mother in a third floor
window, obscenities are screamed
at children holding white balloons
near doorways where handshake
drug deals are coyly being made

I see my former heroin dealer
eating inside of Burger King
with one of his myriad minions
twisting my stomach in temptation
the black clouds begin to pass
& I freely walk on down the road

There is some kind of feeling
on these streets that is no feeling
at all, its vocabulary speaks clearly
of an afterlife filled with nothing
which is something bought & sold
& I guess that I just don’t know