Brooklyn Narcissus

Straight rye whiskey, 100 proof

                       you need a better friend?

                       Yes.        Myself.

The lights

the lights

the lonely        lovely      fucking       lights

and the bridge on a rainy Tuesday night

Blue/green double-stars      the line

that is the drive and on the dark alive

gleaming river

Xmas trees of tugs scream and struggle

                                   Midnite

Drops on the train window wobble  .  stream

                                         My trouble

                                                              is

it is her fate to never learn to make

                                             anything grow

                                   be born or stay

Harbor beginnings and that other gleam  .  The train

is full of long/way/home and holding lovers whose

          flesh I would exchange for mine

          The rain, R.F.,

          sweeps the river as the bridges sweep

          Nemesis is thumping down the line

          But I have premises to keep

          & local stops before I sleep

          & local stops before I sleep

                                                          The cree-

                                                          ping train

                                                          joggles

                                                          rocks across

                                                          I hear

the waves below lap against the piles, a pier

                                               from which ships go

                                                          to Mexico

a sign which reads

PACE O MIO DIO

          oil

                                              “The flowers died when you went away”

Manhattan Bridge

a bridge between

we state, one life and the next, we state

is better so

is no

           backwater, flows

                                         between us is

our span our bridge our

naked eyes

open her

see

bridging whatever impossibility. . . PACE!

PACE O MIO DIO

           oil

                                                          “The flowers died. . .”

                                                          Of course the did

Not that I was a green thing in the house

                                I was once.

                                No matter.

The clatter of cars over the span, the track

                                  the spur

the rusty dead/pan ends of space

            of grease

We enter the tunnel.

The dirty window gives me back my face

(Paul Blackburn.)