TidingsImages of a torn condition In littered back streets linger on, Fading beyond all recognition. The pigeons murmur, and the dawn Prepares another day's edition.
Outside the high delivery doors, The homeless shiver in their sheets Of sodden stock quotes, baseball scores, And wars that rage on distant streets. They wake to hear, like cannon roars, The gunning engines of those fleets.
With gothic mastheads on each side, The presses roll their grinding flood To city corners far and wide. The morning's misery and blood, Tossed off in bundles neatly tied, Hits the pavement with a thud.
Bar
The cherub faces in the mirror Peer into the sea behind them; A shady tender drifts between To moor their vessels and remind them What the damages have been For bringing smoky visions nearer.
A drunken figure shouts "I'll buy!" To one who passed out long ago. Some black-eyed joker makes a pass, Jostles against the glowing row Of bottled spirits in the glass, And sees the reeling stars go by.
Adult Books
Among the crowded racks that rustle With soiled and fingered magazines Of runners-up to beauty queens And males of disproportioned muscle, It seems at times one can detect A feverish sort of intellect, A purely impure contemplation Of limbs in every combination, That strive, as they contort and thresh, To multiply the bonds of flesh, Reaching, in their perversity, A Shiva-like infinity - Then glimpsing, as they writhe and hammer New clauses into the bestial grammar, An old satiety not circumvented Unless new orifices are invented, And going dank into the musty night, The weary pupils shine with chastened light.
Night Office
The ghostly conqueror's column grabs The island air above the street. Like yellow sharks the snappy cabs Swirl all around his frozen feet.
An office lights up just like those Across the way on which it spies. But here one labors to compose A song and dance that no one buys.
It feels more like the vacant floors Above those lit and paid so well. Over the heads that keep the scores It hums in darker parallel.
By measures solid and financial His little business seems unreal. No wonder he looks insubstantial, As insubstantial as he must feel.
He watches the white figures flitting Around their desks and monitors. His task consists of mostly sitting: It seems to be what he prefers.
Whatever he sees in the dark Can't make him do much else but sit. He moves his pencil, makes a mark, And afterwards erases it.
How long he sits one cannot guess, And God knows how he pays the rent. No phone rings, and to this address Nothing is ever faxed or sent.
What's sure is that the light goes out, At some point, like the others do. The windows darken all about, And that is what it all comes to.
As the late-working world surrenders, Some cabbies close in on a fare. Atop the yellow swarm of fenders A stone man seems to walk the air.
Pinball Paradise
Forget your hopes: the sound of bells Has drawn you to a neon door Where no one buys and no one sells.
One coin will take you to the shore Where cares dissolve in colored lights. But lest your shade be asked for more,
Take care now that your paddle fights To keep your soul mercurial From whirling voids and other frights.
Roll all your life into a ball; You have eternity to kill, And like the tally on some dial
That never-ending digits fill, The vision of those mobile spheres, Suspended by the player's skill,
Consumes your moments, days and years.