Hidden from an early age under army
Blankets in old Times Square theatrical
Hotels; undaunted by the medieval pabulum
Of Alcohol, of Art, and of Broken Hearts, I became
A life. I recall looking out from my attic
Pied-à-terre above the 72nd Street station.
Panorama: truck grizzled smoked glass men shoving out,
As though farts, urban fruit boxes; the baying of
Dogs, wanting of combat and I would stand in
My Manchurian silk robe watching, wondering:
'What will they think about tonight, alone with their thickness:
Fingers seeping around beer bottles, speaking not at all
Of remembered muggings' logic teachers?' On the street,
The hookers' “Do you want to go out?” starts
Sounding like “...get out?” Not far
From Lennon's tomb I walk to a subway car –
Wear-shined tracks like two over-tight dirty guitar strings,
Someone's busted birthday instrument — I found my seat across from her.
As she began her Ode To Filth
Extemporaneously orated, informed by thick brown
Army blanket.
She extolled as Cicero, (at once prosecuting and vaunting Cataline);
She held forth in the invisible Senate above — John Gielgud reading
Tennyson's Ulysses on TV
For the Union Bank of Switzerland in 1995;
Harlem insane inside in command in brown blanket of ancient
Subway R forum.
She, a sum greater than The Partings,
Resonates still.

© W.D. Brindle

_________________________
Home: www.gobi-igloo.com
Work: www.esperancesp.com

Will I fit as your W.C.? Handy other far farm arm,
And hammering scenes in the Stockhausen morning, naked --
Shout at the dusty dog who likes to play around that pick-
Up full of bean sprouts and Telemann --
Listen for the errant Lohengrin hidden away in your woods
That contain a dream of enfabled Venice,
But nobody around to hear if there is sound of falling; cause
You lost to the Trojan Stewardesses.
Sing Die Winterreise to myself and a mannequin-quiet cornfield,
Distant clouds scatter in the sky within, like pages.
Be your Introducing Broker when you speculate on precious metal
Flutes and cowgirl pork-belly bags that
Contained you’re reasons.
During the night,
I'll watch 72nd Street subway riders disembark in your sink
Full of symphonies and breakfast dishes.


© W.D. Brindle
______________________
Home: www.gobi-igloo.com
Work: www.esperancesp.com

I am a revolutionary alive and now in the city of borrowers,
absolute master of library arts; a giant warring sloth with armor
plating turning pages, changeling bounder with moves as sudden
as reality showing up in stranger places. I, too, see the evidence.
Soldiers in little hamlets - blonds with new smiles seem likely
to know where I’ve been by the uniform they wear.
In a healthy not-New-York Tootsie Roll face I also read
camouflage affect hiding the friendly fire, sometimes
forcing Sisyphus’ surrender with red Camus flag; they
kiss themselves through me.

I am the Brindle cat of 9th Street, guerrilla Wallace in Wonderland war
room; Joan of Arch counters my Xeroxed strategies from her wired-
windowed room, I, chased around corners by giant metal whistles on wheels.
Too many histrionic police inside flopping, babbling, bobbling!
Restrained by their plastic semi-auto microphones pressing at my medals,
I try some sort of response
But all that comes out is:

“Θάλαττα, θάλαττα, θάλαττα...“

Overdue to your categorizing streets, engaged in mornings
filled with CPAs hovering over your Dewey decimals, taxonomy’s
tenderness sheltered by refusal to see the forest for the no-trees falling.
“Ba-bye...” “are you sure you want to do this?” “red motorcycles and
green sailboats...”

A fifth column of people and cars continue going up and down with all
the gunpowder of a dog-eared old history text with evil Indians’ pictures
written in a language you did not specify in your exegesis but giving me
unequivocally the monumental intonation of forever
rounded Washington Square:
American Revolution.



© W.D. Brindle
________________________
Home: www.gobi-igloo.com
Work: www.esperancesp.com

-- for W. 94th Street Mayo of Calgary, AB    

In these empty apartments
 I have walked past the spot   and there
 on the wooden ground where we touched
 ears are growing up into the room like vegetable garden cluster,
 and I remember your sound.
Yes, and while I watch alone I see the dirt
 and ancient putridity
 panic and cockroaches draw back from   our seminal flesh, so lyrical and lush.
And, while I watch alone, the circle passes through me
 ever wider from the opening
 until the very walls are cleansed down to the horizon;
 the snapshots of this naïve hedonist manifesto
 of present giving
 way to the flowing reality   that exists at the center:
 a promise.
And the city built of playing card photographs falls;
 prepositional surfaces - of, to, with, by -
 pornographies that they are, fall
 from our flesh.

Now, Lou Rawls sleeps on the floor in my empty apartments
 dreaming that if everything were blue, there would be no blue,
 "or China."
For Ginsberg was right: the key is in the window of the West End Bar;
 for I have learned the secret to the mystery of life.
It simply wants to see itself.


 © W.D. Brindle
 _________________________ 
Home: www.gobi-igloo.com
Work: www.esperancesp.com

There's a bar in L.A.
You can walk right in the open door off
The sidewalk and go in and order
A drink, any drink you like, and sit
Down on a stool next to any person
You like and say
Whatever you want to that
Person you want for a long time and
Maybe you will marry that person
And maybe that person is fabulous in 
Re. love intimacies, Bentley leather-rich, and saves
And heals and other
People may come
Right in off of the sidewalk and say
Anything they want, anytime, to you, they
Want and buy drinks and play the right songs too
And make you laugh and compliment you on
Your manner of dress or 
Your comments, your moments, 
Your choice of drink, stool.
You can talk to that person about
L.A. or the bar or bird
Songs or moving to New
York City or another stool, a
Different, a better stool,
And starting over there right in
Off of the sidewalk
And order.



© W.D. Brindle
 ________________
Home: www.gobi-igloo.com
Work: www.esperancesp.com