random city thoughts poetry by pd Lyons
Over the years I’ve been lucky or unlucky depending on the situation, to spend time in cities around the world. Here’s a little snippet from some including Manhattan, Queens, Waterbury, Hamburg. A read for free pass it on consider to respond publication by yours truly. 100% A. I. free. Pure ruff stuff
The Lullaby Of Broadway
this coffee morning
this over the sea hotel
through mists
of stranger time
each movement
preordained
I make my way
to the 14th floor
The City We Lived In
stiletto fingers
organic testament
piercing releasing fluid
rainbow of bad colours
bread crumb numb
in the aftermath
in the mean time
the dry before place
cruellest patience
weight weight weight waiting
no exit
clung concrete tit
iron penis pierced
willing any piece for any price
for any sense of soothing
In The absence Of Air Conditioning
They talk of gambling
Hit, Stay, Bust.
Sizzling meat and eggs
A bronze beadwork of sweat.
In milk and sugar tones
Discuss how are-yous and the weather.
Crackling newspapers,
Clicking cigarette lighters – pressed.
They talk about who they’ve met
And shouldn’t god bless all waitresses?
(And red heads too!)
Salty stringy ham, wet marmalade toast.
The urgent illusion of having someplace else to go.
Unbelievably they talk about what’s new:
New York, New Hampshire, New Guinea and Zealand.
In a collage of oily aprons
The boy on a milk crate
Head back against the white slat wall
Black eyes liquid lures.
Knowing outside this shelter
A stainless steel sun is all that’s waiting
Draws my attention back to coffee,
To sheets of yellow paper
Avoiding grease spots as I wear this pencil down.
Against the wall damp in his apron
Black eyes spiced with swimming fishes
Blessed by the god of electricity
The boy arches towards the fan
(Phil’s Diner, 14. 06.97)
Invitation
Would like your uproarious inclination to amuse
with concerto types and soft cell shoes
the long goodnight bluez
linger like feather down
scamper like roach memories unable to cope with too much light
play on you trumpeting key board string strung tip toe angel
I’ll share a smoke and words never before spoken out loud
if only you ever come abroad
sailing momentarily like the dark
Because I Like You In Dresses
you told me of friends and enemies
we talked about being sick asked everyone in the bar
if they thought seeing someone throw up was funny and
what was their favourite puke story
we smoked two packs of Marlboro
drank “shin un rack brussians”
and at two o’clock or sometime past last call
struggled for comfort in the car
and after we tried everything we knew
to get me over the gin –
you whispered a poem to me
and told me how you really did wear that dress for me
- Outside Inn Waterbury Ct 1980ish
August City Blues
I can hear them next door
Going like a train on a track first laid in 1899
Any minute they’ll be coming’ through that sailor skin wall,
Tattooed with stains I don’t even want to imagine what from.
I can see ivory yellow insects playing hopscotch on the ceiling cracks
Almost resembling a giant spider’s web. Mid motion plaster magically suspended against the law of gravity – everything in this place is a crime.
And the wind blow through the window except we’re in a box,
Buildings like brick mirrors reflect each other through a tobacco glass frozen by at least a century of lead.
The heat, old velvet somewhat maroon from an old vaudeville gone to Cinema now closed down theatre, parts as I move into a corridor of internal organ colours. Tobacco-urine-lollipop sugar perfumes hyperventilate my way. The elevator a risk in former glory mahogany trimmed with left over bits of brass – an arrow used to point the floor numbers now in pure sophomoric symbolism points only straight down. I’m out, for cigarettes, a bottle of some kinda clear alcohol and a bag of ice to fill the sink and later to stick my face into
Calling It Love
Black Sea, palm tree dreams,
recorded Springsteen’s Badlands,
philosophic gift to a lover
borrowed from your roommate,
when you lived on a street named for lanterns.
Wrapped in your long black coat,
cross the city underground,
through heavy draped doorways,
nuzzle into smoke, and hot grog.
where even timeless sailors, reluctant to approach,
as if they knew something steel hidden in your pocket.
The last time you were here –
making cigarettes for a lover
borrowed from your roommate.
conversation a blur. cinema forgotten.
Unburdened in a room above the kiosk.
all sense of betrayal excused by adventure…
Next morning, walking home
dry steel footsteps echo,
as even you found yourself
believing in what you knew was not
and calling it love.
Sylvester Day
The bicycle thief of Hamburg has no arms.
She sits in the lobby, waiting.
Smoking filtered cigarettes
Held between her toes –
After the ballet would be her time :
From midnight to dawn, charms
Bicycles from their chains, frees
Them from railings and fence posts,
From street poles and the bumpers of parked cars…
Like children after a pied piper, they’d follow her.
Later, she’d walk again
Those same streets alone, to watch –
People holding nothing but empty chains
Where they had expected a bicycle.
The look on their faces
Prompting the true reason for her actions,
For at that moment,
So as to hide her laughter,
She would forget herself and
Wish for arms.
(West Germany 1982)
