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This lady came to me via the net. I have no bio yet,
but soon.
"Brought With Praise"
Did I ever tell you,
I drink my city burrows, subways and avenues?
Sleep on fire escapes in summer night breezes?
Out on that black
metal,
sitting,
legs pulled into my chest.
Gazing in wonder
at the twinkling of lights that can't be wished upon,
on the
fronts of metal birds ferrying souls across an atmosphere
four stairs
shy of heaven.
Watching in silence
the steel horses
gallop those last few
miles into the station.
The yellow glow of her eyes embedded in my
head.
Back and forth she snakes lazy trips in and out of the city.
I sit on stools facing long panes of clean glass
eating hotdogs
with mustard and ketchup,
wiping my face
as the workers rush by.
wiping my face
as the workers rush by.
Dwelling in the urban;
surviving in the city,
their feet hit the pavement as if pulsed by one
heart.
Afternoons
I spend my days cataloging art in moldy basements.
They could have once held Pollock, Kahlo or Clemente
instead of a
bunch of names no one ever heard of,
waiting to be the next best
thing.
The next Ar-tist.
To me, the Next Best Thing is an expression.
Honesty that believers
put in their craft,
not another new name, name trumpeted as being
rescued, revealed, redeemed, revered.
By another name, no less!
It's the genre.
Another name waiting for his life to die
the
long short death
to be crucified on a gallery wall;
immortalized
in a museum catalog.
Oh, well.
One more tale of long days of dust
and cobwebs
blown off by steam rising from street grates.
At home
the phone rings, it's a student from Parson's.
He's
Leslie and he wants to know what shoes I wear,
how tall I like them
and if I dance with gay boys.
Only in this city under the influence of
the East Village
does it happen.
I know he's a polish wearing,
spiked hair,
Roxy dancing kind of boy.
I photograph
tourists sitting on benches closing up our bridges in
their maps.
I wonder if they realize you could hang yourself from
those.
Their eyes contemplate the night
as one million volts light
up the Square,
giving resurrecting thought to never being a tourist
here again
but a permanent fixture.
You want to see permanent?
Turn out the Square's damn lights and let it get dark.
Give me a
crayon.
I'll color in the guy begging for money
to get hookers to
cleanse his filthy soul.
After reading this Francois says:
a "New York wears you like a 5th
Avenue Vera Wang dress."
I'd like that, but only if it's a wrap
around.
Only if I can untie it,
strip and flash my scars.
She
can use me like a billboard.
Only if I paid for it by writing about
it.
Cause I love how she kisses you ever so often
so that you don't
leave her.
Leave her behind for something sane, something safe.
I
say the previous as a statement and a plea.
She's got a soul drugged
out on ecstasy.
Pretty lady intriguing with her velvet red lips and
her purse filled with
sin.
She's got the finest drugs you've never
done.
You'll find yourself strung out on unfamiliar streets
tasting fresh baked temptations.
Just walking, walking in time to
her rhythm.
I'm already sweetly warped.
Already easily brought by praise.
Already her slave,
hungry for a taste of the whip.
Her
groupie,
eager for another glimpse.
Her lover,
insatiable.
And I think that it can't much better than this.
Pablo Neruda wrote
masterpieces at eighteen
but then
I'm not Neruda.
"Jean Michael's Ode"
Saw Basquiat
bowed down in awe.
He crossed words out on canvas
to keep them in the background.
Brilliant.
Never thought of that,
inferiority I suppose.
If I were an artist
the very scaffolding that I walk under
would cradle me above as I impregnated the wall with words.
My
babies screaming at the world
their many faces torturing and revolting
like Jean-Michel's.
Inflict upon myself pain enough for a tormented soul
until it
became real.
Crass syllables put together
for clones to read in
Sunday morning editions.
Eat glass, spit out the blood and use it on
my canvas.
Make woe, paint life,
smoke dope, gain light,
sweat paint, die
young.
Be shelved under artist.
Photographs of my face.
Note: Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American Painter in the eighties New
York art scene.
"Going Nowhere"
That night I stepped off the bus
looked up to the sky
and
caught the sight of a plane flying right through the moon.
Unbelievable;
like Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust“.
Dreamatic, if that's even a word.
Breathtaking,
if that's what I could call Glam Rock and Drag
Queens.
Oh the glitter of it all!
Flying to Mars to meet that guy with the
short spiked red hair.
"Grab my hand and sing me Starman, spaceboy!"
White clouds staining a blue sky.
Glowing quarter moon
that
could have inspired love and sin in pill form.
Like a one, two step
through the honey
tip-toeing across my soul.
attaching itself to
any memory
still lingering there.
Habit forming and drizzled
across my tongue.
Every gooey stringy strand, sweet; shocking the
buds.
I grab my chest from sudden attack.
The spaceman does that.
And I saw you.
In a global attack, pimp smack,
red mark across your face.
Slapped and satisfied you are often heard to reply
"In my youth
and in this city.
I kept wading through the water that once held
shelter in these eyes.
Once lofty on the lashes,
now spills
desperate on the floor.
Try and try as I did to cup my hands
and
drink you in,
you just kept flowing.
I didn't know where you were
going;
but you just kept flowing."
I crossed the street and cranked up my walkman
the music reminding
me of Bleecker on a Friday night.
Me,
walking towards Union
Square.
You,
going somewhere.
Pulling my scarf up around my
face,
shoving blue hands into cold leather pockets.
© Ginger Rudolph 2001 | 