733. CHARLTON STREET

CHARLTON STREET
Nothing but a crazy fucking silence.
2314 and the 3rd floor freight elevator
13th Street where they made porn flicks.
Now there's nothing. From uptown to down
only the crackle of money : ornamentation
stricken with sledge-hammer angst, all
those gargoyles of a true old decoration now
either dead and/or buried. Far away and long
ago, I can't even remember how it was
done.
-
'Surround yourself with your own ideas,
yet place them in a tradition of yore' -
though he never said that, those words
were used against T.S. Eliot in a court of
law; well, literary law anyway. What he'd really
said was : 'the entire world has fallen away.
Instead of pillaging, take what you can from
the past to advance the present.' The only
reason I know all this is that he used to
live right next to me at 87 Charlton.
-
He used to cook feathery eggs on Thursdays.
His ex-wife would sit in a chair, crying.
He spoke of tea as if it was gold.
He was really from Missouri,
I was told.
-
He used to say cool things:
'the door opens on her like a grin,
and the corner of her eye twists
like a crooked pin.'