David Shevin
It could have been a blink when I saw
the tall man own the Eastern girl's
perfect, almond soul for a second.
Looking up from meows and from newsprint
I saw them stand there at the counter, her face
in perfect black frame of black hair, black blouse
and he wore black, too, a sweatshirt
from Nowhere and Everywhere College. She let
fly a wild, birdlike talk--and that brightness
amid black on black on black appeared
for the world to be a face speaking
from the center of young Lincoln's chest.
And the shop they were in was boasting
new owners, too. Up the street, the work
had shut down on the locksmith shop,
the project to turn the building to parole
worker office. So the lockshop turned
to an unlock shop and the girl sang
alto from baritone chest and managers
juggled the coffee and new customers,
beancounting in novel ways, plying new trade.
The souls now owned by the iron and concrete
awakened, remaining asleep to their plastic
and cinderblock future across the the fried
chicken place. I listened, moving closer
to hear all the words of her song.
"What you own is not your own,
All you hold gets bought and sold.
Keep your sight on pure delight.
Release will be your masterpiece."
It could have been a blink, for what she sung
returned on a tray in two mugs. The girl
had her perfect face back, and the song
played stupid new words on a frantic radio.
Dear Child I also by pleasant Streams
Have wanderd all Night in the Land of Dreams
But tho calm & warm the Waters wide
I could not get to the other side
--Blake, "The Land of Dreams"
Baruch hashem, Blessed be the name
my friend David writes on the note
he sends with his songs, songs that
cackle to God, renounce and choke
with the bruise of knowledge, the pinch
that to understand is always a hurt,
it's a laugh and a half. This is not
any secret, not the the squirt
with his spray paint can at a wall
in Barrio Altamira, Managua
(scouting a house, truck at a crawl
and we picked up Xenia) and there's
the phrase right in front of me:
a North American obscenity, a sole
triumphal English Language assay
transformed by the Romance Language
love of the reflexive verb. KISS
ME MY DICK. Honest. That is what
my religious friend David, a whiz
with a song or holy text would call
the handwriting on the wall, a laugh
and a half. In the pain all about,
the guys on the dump who have to graph
their days by what gets scounged
in refse behind the Bodega
Flor de Cana and the children whose hands
fill with surplus, the daily data
of what's not selling at WalMart
up North, they hawk to coughing cars
their only prayer a sale that will
be dinner. Ah, in that fiscal farce
passing for an economy, what could say
it better? Kiss me my dick. Let it
be spoken. Let the words whisper
to First World suits till they get it.
Let David's God hear me pray. Kiss,
kiss me my dick, oh blessed name.
What else do you expect? "Why would,"
--my buddy's taped voice is aimed
to something above that ought
to be hearing-- "Why would they want
to worship you, when you left them
alone?" And there ain't a scant
answer in this wide old world where
nothing could be funnier than
living among or ruled by capital
while capitalism dies. Ha, fun.
Ha, funny. You could laugh your ass
off, and buy it right back again.
When we were kids, David played
(always instinct) what his imagination
heard or the Theme from Exodus
on keyboard. By middle age
a deaf-eared Heaven turns from stink
(don't poverty smell the same way
everywhere?) and the game acquisition
is shit for the bank boards, but
a coin for some kid's belly
as he sidles to a fender--You
want this Gutbuster exercise spring?
Twelve cordoba. Ten. And through
the child's voice, through the sound
of my friend and yours in song,
through the gasp of cruel contracts
splintering, let new life rise strong.
Let old gods kiss me my dick
and a half. Selah. This is my psalm
or else this was my scream
as I wanderd all Night
in the Land of Dreams.