Portrait of a City
I.
Like a lady staged for beheading by axe,
A damsel in distress lies on the tracks,
Bound and gagged by some two-bit felon.
Meanwhile a freighter hauling watermelon
Barrels through a rounded mountain pass
At full-speed towards the city. Alas!
There's not a chance in hell that the conductor
Can stop this train before it's fucked her
Up beyond repair. The rails begin to hum...
Is there anyone racing to save her from
That grated fender, gobbling up ties,
Growing, reflected in her gaping eyes?
II.
A mangy hound yawns and rolls off his stoop,
Licks his balls for a minute, takes a poop,
And sets off for work at a limping trot.
Timing is everything, and time should not
Be wasted avoiding emergencies.
To rummage through garbage, to piss on trees,
To trace a stink up to a bitch's drip --
These are tasks no healthy pooch can skip.
Likewise, filled with sleep and despair,
And the wind rustling in his armpit hair,
The general's under-aged daughter's love
Hangs nude from a window, stories above
A horrible splat where death is certain.
But over the wind, and through the curtain,
He can hear his young lover lie to her father
Without so much as a hint of that bother
Which always betrays there's something to hide.
Thus pinioned by death, but swelling with pride,
If the lover survives this unforgettable fright,
Will he really regret having spent the night?
III.
Even though staring up from the street below,
A peculiar man with a mustachio
Publicly masturbates through his pocket,
Smacking his lips like a puttering rocket...
And there slinks through his legs our mangy hound
Fleeing some blood-thirsty goons from the pound!
It takes about the same amount of time
For a young terrorist, obsessed with crime,
To infiltrate a building, plant some dynamite,
Remove his false beard and vanish from sight,
As it takes grandma, her rags a-dangle,
And her backbone bent at a right angle,
To lug her rickety cart between streets
Where impatient commuters writhe in their seats.
Their honking distracts the nude paramour,
And those pound-goons trample the creep before
He can splooge into his underwear.
There is only one stage for these actors to share.
IV.
But the city arranges their disparate lives
Into lines of a symphony that drives
Time musically onward, to the rhythm
Of a universal algorithm.
The conductor rises, begins to hear,
A faint motif repeated in his ear...
He senses, cued by an ill-fated past,
That tonight's performance will be his last.
Because, as he walks, that faint innuendo
Rises steadily in a crescendo
Of kettle-drum, trumpet and violin,
Until the vast, subconscious leviathan
Of death reverberates, bursting the brim
Of his ear! And then music rushes out of him.
He steps. The billboards flicker off to on;
The flow of traffic follows his baton;
The cranes for construction, the crowds that throng,
The whole city thrums to his funeral song!
Meanwhile mindless of her sonic environs,
Jackhammer chatter, ambulance sirens,
The purr of engines and patter of feet,
Your average dweller parades through the street
Ignorant of death. She hardly listens
To that mysterious knocking in the distance...
V.
Frying eggs can be a monumental task
After you've downed two bottles and a flask
Of whiskey, lost your vision and your balance,
Half your faculties and all your talents.
Performing a contemporary dance
In his kitchenette, a drunken bachelor's hands
Clutch for support at cutlery, dishes,
Which slide and rebound against his wishes
As his gyroscopic center of mass
Intersects the appliances, china, and glass.
When at last he sees through threads of smoke,
In a pool of oil, some sizzling yolk,
He collapses into his sink to doze
And convalesce from these heroic blows:
The forks in his feet and regret in his heart,
His sacrifices to the culinary art.
It's needless to say, he'll miss the entire
Fire which rages hotter and higher
Throughout the building and into the rooms
Where various tenants meet various dooms.
It is of no small interest to explore
This apartment building seconds before
The roof caves in and the windows belch flame,
As it also happens to be the same
Abode in which the general resides,
Beneath whose windows mustache-man collides
With those pound-goons, even as we speak.
You can find him there any day of the week.
VI.
O! If any tenant only knew how busy
Their building was, they'd be just dizzy!
But the geezers at chess even fail to observe
The curtains of fire which circle and swerve
Down the hallway where their schizoid neighbor
Applies herself to the ritual labor
Of unlocking eight locks, feeling for gaps,
And disarming her arsenal of booby traps.
Down that hall, to the elevator,
Where, immobile as a radiator,
A mousy woman eyes an obese man
Experience hell in the two minute span
Between floors. Drenched in sweat, his whole frame sags,
Burdened by his many fanny-packs and bags...
His heart visibly reaching its limit,
His mandible juts in a horrible grimace.
Instants before the elevator rings,
Somewhere a sinister microwave dings,
And, either by the power of her hatred
Or the mystery science of protein denatured,
The heavy-set man bursts into chunks
Of liquified organ and visceral gunks,
Coating, in a sticky, marinara-like goo,
The lift's interior, and the woman too.
In cases like these, it's wasted breath
To pinpoint precisely the cause of death.
And barring autopsy, we must say that
There are a million ways to skin a cat.
VII.
A corpse rolls out of a telephone booth.
A schoolboy swings a human femur. In truth,
Nobody survives the city. If not
Down-right murdered or accidentally shot,
It takes perpetual effort to decide
Against the ever-tempting suicide.
The joyless women in expensive cars,
The pubescent boys relighting old cigars
So awkwardly in their skinny fingers,
The idle dweller forever malingers
With a nameless mental illness, so obscure
That almost anything might be the cure.
Rooftop gardening, tennis, masochism,
The repetition of the catechism...
All must find something to take possession
Of a mind whose default is depression.
There are no willing alcoholics,
But where is the sober adult who frolics
On their bed and laughs like a hyena
After accepting service of subpoena
To appear in court for their magnificent crime?
The most forsaken art is how to spend the time.
VIII.
A group of men derive exquisite pleasure
From searching for subterranean treasure
Down in the sewers, among the alligators,
The goldfish corpses and old refrigerators.
Wearing headlamps, they wade through the slime,
Occasionally stumbling on something sublime:
A human skull or a murderer's pistol,
A mutant fish or a sorcerer's crystal,
Finds which they filch without a legal permit.
Another dweller is the city's hermit,
Scrupulously mindful not to disturb
The holy motion of its nameless verb.
Combining these somewhat disparate projects,
A quiet man collects discarded objects,
Anything free, for which he hopes to recover
The hidden value others can't discover:
Notes; postcards; stock-reports; papers;
Single and triple hole punchers; staplers;
Newspaper clippings; magazine coupons;
Cigarette packages: Marlboros, Duponts;
Wooden boxes for cigars and cigarettes;
VCRs; DVDs; records; cassettes;
CRT monitors; LCD screens;
CD players and fax machines;
Tapedecks; radios missing their dials;
Free antivirus software trials;
Panels of glass; odd wooden boards;
Coiled, elastic telephone cords;
Tangles of chargers and ethernet cables;
Foldable lawn-chairs; portable tables;
Photo calendars and black dossiers;
Batteries: Ds, double and triple As;
Lamps and ladders; outdated briefcases;
Mix-matched loafers without any laces;
The straight- and round-handled cane and umbrella;
Egg cartons hinting of old salmonella;
Cans of soda: empty and dented;
Bottles of juice, already fermented;
Two liter bottles with foam-topped urine;
Circulars for disaster insurance;
Open tin-cans, clear of tomatoes;
Sealed tin-cans, full of potatoes;
Key-chain; gift-card; mail-order catalog;
Handfuls of watches: digital, analog;
Building announcements: unopened and urgent;
Deodorant; soap; laundry detergent;
Scanners and printers; keyboards and mice;
Coat-hangers; bubble-wrap; maggots like rice;
Territorial crickets and cool cockroaches,
Indifferent to light and human approaches;
Fruit juice cartons: orange and tropical;
Cosmetic lotions: scented and topical;
Scissors and tweezers for nails and cuticles;
Expired prescriptions for pharmaceuticals;
Guides to the dreamiest travel destinations;
Wine-books for someday paradise vacations;
Canvases to cover with newer, better art;
Busted gizmos to fix; projects to start;
Dumpsters upon dumpsters of things to do:
Promises, dreams that will never come true;
Business card holders; saccharin packets;
Paralyzed sweaters; mildewy jackets;
Light-fixtures; broom-handles; a surge protector;
Honey and syrup; agave nectar;
Wobbly jelly; containers of grease;
An imageless, cardboard puzzle piece...
This trash compacted as tight as sardines
Into a bedroom unit is what it means
To abandon every semblance of order.
In other words, to be a hoarder.
Reaching the ceiling up from the floor,
Bowing its peaks just to spill through a door,
This trash-compacted garbage conglomerate,
Fused together in a newspaper omelet,
Born of an abominable chemical reaction,
Struggles to breath from the protraction
Of its lungs against the building's walls!
And over this being, the quiet man crawls,
Scraping his ceiling just to pass between rooms.
By now he's immune to the noxious fumes
Emanating from the various species
Of fungal colony and rodent feces.
He stares at a shoe with tears in his eyes,
Almost confronting the decades of lies
Expressed by this insane accumulation.
But losing himself in the rapt contemplation
Of his magnum opus, this indoor landfill,
Of his whole life's work -- this spiritual anvil
On which dreams are forged! -- its present imperfection
Compels him onward, to continue the collection.
IX.
Meanwhile a man is falling through the sky.
He bid his old self his only goodbye
Before stepping, barefoot, over the edge
Of his building. The truth hits like a sledge-
Hammer, smashing every meaningless behavior.
Self-deception is the only savior.
What's curious is: would the man still have lept
If he knew of the fire about to have swept
Through his home? And how would the hoarder react
If he were made privy to this catastrophic fact?
Would he burn on the pyre? Abandon his treasure?
Or save what objects gave him greatest pleasure?
X.
The pigeon is the symbol of the city.
Cyclopsed and crippled, weathered and gritty,
Forever kicked at, spat on, shooed away,
No sooner noticed than forgotten, they
Flock without friendship in search of crumbs,
Spastically pecking the asphalt near bums.
The fowl, baptized in rainbow oil slicks,
Glistens iridescent, like a phoenix,
Frisks its limp wing, as if it has spoken:
"I can be beaten, but can never be broken."
This luckless monster's only fuel is fire,
No lofty eagle’d ever dare soar higher!
And then a toddler, giddy with power,
Charges the flock and watches them cower.
XI.
Back to the sky, a plastic bag is blurred,
Indistinguishable from a drifting bird...
Whereas bags that snag on trees en route
Dangle plumply like mellowed fruit.
A cigarette filter stomped under a spur
Roughly resembles a raccoon's white fur,
And a rainbow spectrum of broken glass
Mosaically decks the yellowing grass...
The city is a cult. In order to convert
Dwellers must receive the sacrament of dirt.
From generations of progressive dissolution,
Even the trees now are addicted to pollution.
Their pores clogged, they live for the seething
Sensuousness of difficult breathing.
A birch would whore its pulp out at no cost
To wrap its lips around a car's exhaust
And huff emissions until kingdom come.
XII.
Two young cousins plash in a puddle of scum,
Some mixture of grime and yesterday's rain,
In that same parking-lot where an insane,
Shirtless, beltless, barefoot man
With his fingers in his belt-loops, ran
Through the downpour, looking over his shoulder
At an empty street. But themselves no older
Than ten, they wiggle and giggle, pigs in a sty,
Flinging clods of goop at passers-by.
The young professionals cannot approach these brutes
Without getting goop all on their suits.
They even bomb the poor old city monk
Who loses his temper covered in gunk,
Which begs the question whether nirvana
Is any better than a make-shift sauna.
XIII.
Puffs of cigar trail a short yellow bus,
Whose driver, smoking, won't stand for a fuss.
The matron's head bobbing over his lap,
He hollers: "OK kids, time for your nap!"
While the special-ed children bang their heads
On the windows and steal each others' meds.
XIV.
The city sinks deeper into the muck...
The car mechanic starts up his truck.
The wheels spin out and kick up a spatter
Of warm, viscous mud, gooey as batter,
To which our mangy hound quickens his pace
To catch the gumbo with his face.
As a motherly whore, with jutting chest,
Might receive a load upon her breasts.
After a lonely night of disappointment,
Without so much as a single appointment,
Trekking home from work, uphill in heels,
An elderly sex worker finally feels
The end. Doffing her jizz-soaked wig,
And downing her brandy, a quick little swig,
She smears a can of dog-food into her cooch
And whistles for that mangy alley pooch.
His apron scented with sweat and cumin,
When a chef, on his smoke break, sees this woman
Walking by, he cannot help but pass
A meaningful squint at her shrinking ass.
XV.
Even more than money, everyone needs sex.
Even the old grannies with saggy necks,
Even the greasy grandpas who are way too dirty,
Surprising the kiddies by being so flirty.
And the man whose untameable erection,
Like a compass rose, points in the direction
Of due sex, nearly dislocates his hips
When a woman walks by licking her lips.
And sometimes, wearing his clever bowler,
A young husband pushes his baby stroller
Along streets whose women shake the bedrock
Of his immaculately chastened wedlock.
For wherever promiscuity treads,
Dwellers scurry between each others' beds:
A pubic tangle, an orgy of gnats,
A map of ecstasy, whose whens and where-ats
Sprinkle orgasms, like stardust, over the fire
Where bodies are kindling for the law of desire.
XVI.
There is always this question: who is the king
Of this sprawling, amorphous, living thing?
Without a constitution or committee,
Who can claim the center of the city?
Puckering like a fish and spurting water,
Reclined and whiskered, an urban otter,
The drunken mayor wakes up in a fountain.
One eye still closed, he feels a mountain
Poke its jagged ridges through his brain.
And he immediately calls for more champagne.
Chasing their dreams though they've nothing to eat,
Only people prepared to sleep in the street
Would risk a total transformation of the city
Into something human, honest, maybe even pretty.
XVIII.
The city streets are always on display.
Along building facades, the sidewalks convey
Parades of phantoms, of nameless faces,
Living images that leave no traces.
How many phantoms have already sped
Through your life? How many are already dead?
Passing in the opposite direction,
Every dweller faces an inspection
Based on facets of their exterior,
Who is superior, who inferior,
In an instant interpreted and judged.
Every smiling face, irrevocably smudged
Into oblivion; each existence
Is flattened by indifference's insistence.
The torrents of critical glances grind
The armor of self-love inside the mind
Such that, to survive the blows and scorches,
Every dweller must become a fortress.
No longer a body, but a statement,
No longer a spirit, but a blatant
Coordinate of status or salary:
An eighteenth century portrait gallery.
XIX.
This sort of snooty exhibition,
All that hypocrisy and inhibition,
Hangs precariously in one of the parks.
Until, between strangers, eye contact sparks
An explosion of possibility,
A fleet confession of fragility,
That equal being seen and seeing,
An encounter with a human being:
With seven gold rings, the thinnest mustache,
Dislocated loins and a horrible rash,
Legs bowed like a horseshoe, one roams the street.
He's wearing women's stockings on his feet
And his tie tucked into his underwear,
Tighty-whities today, his luckiest pair!
What's more: this man claims he owns the moon
With a celestial power which makes him swoon
Four times a day, at the turn of the tide.
Watch him do business: “Bright and dark side
Of the moon for sale! A ten acre lot
Can be yours, just gaze up and point to the spot!
What do you say, madame, care to buy land
In a quiet crater of silver sand?”
Before she can whack him, call him a creep,
The tide quickly turns and he falls asleep.
That brief moment instantly consumes
Itself, and the portrait gallery resumes.
XX.
There are some people who look everyone
Deep into the eyes (right hand on their gun),
And there are people who choose not to look.
Having looked before, they lost the strength it took.
Only on the outskirts of their vanity
Will dwellers celebrate humanity.
Only when they think no one can see
Will they show you who they mean to be.
The kleptomanaical lesbian,
Aroused by her spoils, waxes thespian,
And sprinkles mints over her laughing lover.
Muted workers watch their boss recover,
From his colossal schnoz, a juicy booger,
And suck on it like a gob of sugar.
A wandering clown rehearses her antics.
An early-bird jogs in colorful spandex.
The elderly pharmaceutical junkies,
Wearing blocky sunglasses, laugh like monkeys
When they bonk their heads in a mirror maze.
And the fashionable lady in a traumatized daze
Carts the prickly fruit of her barren marriage:
A pineapple in a baby carriage.
XXI.
A dash of secrecy is in the recipe
When one intends to live a fantasy,
Which maybe explains why a certain girl
Hides her existence from the world.
Shunning all attention, camoflauged in shame,
She celebrates when anyone forgets her name.
Nibbling her lunch in the bathroom at work,
She calculates every decision to shirk
All interaction. She must always stay alert
To her carefully tended, precious hurt...
Or, dragging the tiniest of feet,
Another little princess marches down the street.
Her eyes red and puffy, with snot in her mouth,
Like breadcrumbs, her tear-drops follow her south.
Why is she crying? Absorbed in their task,
Not a single passer-by will ask.
XXII.
But there are empty streets in every city
Where broken souls can wander without pity
Raining down on them from strangers' eyes,
Where the sound of footsteps comes as a surprise
Because there's no-one over your shoulder.
And as the gazes harden and glances grow colder,
Like a specter, never to be seen again,
Beyond the city limits, now and then
Someone walks away in search of flowers.
But not our mangy hound, who after all these hours,
Finally reaches his intended destination:
A slapdash shelter, this vagrant wayside station,
To hear the homeless wizard's speeches
And lick the gangrene off his filthy breeches.
It's true what they say: the wisest are bums.
Fools rush to work. The philosopher slums
On cardboard mats with a newspaper pillow,
Sipping his brown bag of spiked sarsaparilla.
He says: "It's all the same, it's all the same...
Vain ambitions in a pointless game.
Oh yea, I could have been a man of letters,
But I rejected fame and fortune's fetters.
I was a poet; but do not confuse:
There was never a need to invoke the muse.
Surrounded everywhere by poems, I
Would pluck them from the air. No butterfly
Of inspiration, but swirls of snowflakes hung
About me, and I would catch them on my tongue.
But every time I'd try recite a poem,
A ringing phone. The listener's thoughts would roam.
Not like yours, my faithful mutt...
I considered publication, but for what?
To be an impotent scholar's intellectual toy,
To win the dainty love of some sickly boy,
To sit forever on a dusty shelf
Or earn a public statue for myself?
Just so the pigeons, without having read
A single verse, could shit on my head?
So what if I declined the honor,
To become instead this idle yawner?"
He hears distant voices laughing up a riot.
His face drops suddenly. He goes quiet.
XXIII.
The day is always starting and ending:
Lights are revolving; shadows are bending.
On the starless, purple vault, in the shrouds
Where the building's smoke mingles with clouds,
The same full moon that hangs in every sky
Is slowly, patiently sailing on by.
Among men pretending to be statues,
Among women feeding squirrels cashews,
In the park, where junkies pick at their stubble,
Squealing children grasp at soapy bubbles.
While hustlers find tricks to con for quick scratch,
And alcoholics throw vodkas down the hatch,
Oblivious children, as fast as cartoons,
Chase the ice-cream truck's familiar tunes.
How long have they got before they're the kids,
Lanky as noodles and gangly as squids,
Flaking on chores, protesting errands,
Bootlegging liquor, stealing from parents,
Who skateboard on railings, make-out on benches,
And produce the sharpest human stenches?
XXIV.
Outside a bar, on the edge of a rut,
Hunched over, retching and clutching his gut,
A miserable, under-aged student spews
Yesterday's minestrone onto his shoes.
Of course, by its inexorable protocol,
In the blink of an eye, really no time at all,
The city will claim this nameless denizen.
He'll be another law-abiding citizen
Plagued with nightmares and anxiety.
In short, a productive member of society.
But for now, receiving one of life's rare boons,
He sees a little girl with many red balloons
Appear, and she offers him one as a gift.
He accepts. His nausea and drunkenness lift.
And lighter from having given one away,
The girl, still clutching her rubber bouquet,
Begins to hover, and drift up towards the sky.
And the student observes as he's waving goodbye,
That she, with a precocious, melancholy grace,
Is wearing no expression on her face.