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The neighbor was screaming,
“Vivian, Vivian, I love you darling!”
The fire escape dripped dirty sex
into a sweltering Manhattan August
“Vivian, Vivian, I love you darling!”
Sounding like lines in an off-Broadway
avant-garde musical
tripping down the fire escape
and into the cracked and crummy
window of my SRO
My head rests on sheets stained yellow –
not my yellow; some cheap hotel yellow –
that smells of desperate industrial detergent
Nine p.m. darkness in the shadows of sodium lights
that reflect like drunks and hoodlums
sprawling along 42nd Street
“Vivian, I love you!” the neighbor screams,
trying to bring hope to the urban sickness –
an infirmary of tenements,
dirty peepshow theaters
and a sad broken down bar
hustling on the corner.
Outside the bar stands a loud,
out-of-tune trumpeter
howling out blue-sounding notes
that torture his instrument
as they squawk into the night.
If those blue notes could sing the blues,
They’d be perfect.
They’d squawk, “Vivian, Vivian I love you.”
If my name was Souby, I'd be you, lol. So I've just ordered your newest book, which looks and sounds as if it's going to be right up my proverbial alley. Much like the tortured notes coming from the trumpet above.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Bennington College MFA grad, way back in '98. And only now, within the last four months or so, have I regained any semblance of that man who had high hopes for a grand literary future. Dope is a demon, as you well know.
I'm not quite sure how I stumbled onto your work, but happenstance is like that, right? Damn glad that I did. And I really am looking forward to reading the book.
I would love to talk to you sometime and hear a little about your real story...how you managed to kick the shit and get back to what you were meant to do.
All the best to you. Finding you came at the perfect time. It's tentatively comforting to know that I might be able to create again. I've been thinking about it for a long time. But as you know, nothing else matters. At all. When you need what you need.
If my name was Souby, I'd be you, lol. So I've just ordered your newest book, which looks and sounds as if it's going to be right up my proverbial alley. Much like the tortured notes coming from the trumpet above.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Bennington College MFA grad, way back in '98. And only now, within the last four months or so, have I regained any semblance of that man who had high hopes for a grand literary future. Dope is a demon, as you well know.
I'm not quite sure how I stumbled onto your work, but happenstance is like that, right? Damn glad that I did. And I really am looking forward to reading the book.
I would love to talk to you sometime and hear a little about your real story...how you managed to kick the shit and get back to what you were meant to do.
All the best to you. Finding you came at the perfect time. It's tentatively comforting to know that I might be able to create again. I've been thinking about it for a long time. But as you know, nothing else matters. At all. When you need what you need.
Hey, you can email me at csouby@outlook.com. I'd love to chat with you.
ReplyDelete