…the poems flying amid the jukebox
music, the olding Beats and the Baby Beats and the commies,
the surrealists, the anarchists, the socialists, the jazzmen, the ultra
screwballs, the walk-in weirdoes, the beautiful women begun and
developed here, and the tots, those fooblezeegs, always so welcome
and alive at this street level…
Pizza Prostitute
Shifting pizza from oven to cardboard circle:
slice chop: cutting counter to cardboard box:
snap crunch: box closed: ring up on cash
register: with some creative license plays
the intro to Pink Floyd’s Money.
Juke box johns slide coin after coin
into her slick slot: she sings Fancy
and Me and Bobby McGee. Lights swoon
to music humming out of her bowels:
discs click click change and spin a tune.
No commies, Beats, or surrealists here:
only want-to-be cowboys homophobes
blue collars lingering waiting listening:
Fucking faggots, Jews, pinkos: this from a man
in dirty jeans plaid flannel and trucker cap:
not worn for style.
Five years I tolerate it:
talking judging the world
outside these imperceptible walls: holding us
inside progress outside: slip change discs:
Good-Bye Earl.
Here no women grow beautiful: but haggard
they become. Two Taylor boys slide skin past skin
under the table: walk-in weirdoes still come condemn:
no socialists no anarchists: the fight well removed:
2+2=5. And she sings: Yes, I Am!
Reason Breeds Insanity 