Geoffrey Bartholomew - Manhattan Noir 2 - The Classics

               doors and windows twisted

               by McSorley’s heavy sag

               everything out of whack

               creak and groan of ghosts

               they speak, you know

               but Woodrow Wilson there

               I can’t understand him

               he garbles his words

My brother Jerzy’s dead thirty years tonight

               we grew up here on 7th Street

               St. George’s, God and girls

               stickball, cars and beer

               then we started the skag

               Jerzy shot up first

               I was belting my arm

               when he sat back

               his eyes went real wide

               like flooring the Buick

               feeling that crazy rush

Bill McSorley up there by the icebox

               resembles Teddy Roosevelt

               a smaller moustache

               timid eyes, sour mouth

               really did love his old man

               vowed to keep the bar as is

               kill time in this real place

               now just a face on the wall

               the bar a mute witness

               to Bill’s doomed love

My favorite relic is the playbill from the 1880s

               a windmill and two dutchgirls

               on a forlorn spit of land

               the ocean a white-capped menace

                What Are The Wild Waves Saying?

               some March nights it blows

               so hard against the windows

               I’d swear it’s Jerzy’s voice

Larry, homeless black wraith, taps the window

               I make him a liverwurst on rye

               some nights he has d.t.s

               tonight he’s souful

                I fucked up, he says

               shoeless, he begins again

               his scabrous circle

               East Village Odysseus

The ripe nude in the painting back there

               I don’t like her much

               she knows she’s got it

               that mouth of plump disdain

               the parrot probably trained

               to do weird shit, yeah

               they liked that stuff back then

And on every wall this guy Peter Cooper

               rich and famous in 1860

               John McSorley’s buddy

               they say he brought Lincoln here

               after some Great Hall speech

               that’s real strange, me here

               where Lincoln once drank

At night I oil the old bar

               there’s a sag in the middle

               the mahogany a wornout horse

               I know it’s stupid, but I think

               Jerzy’s going to appear one night

               we’re all gonna sit here and talk

               him and Cooper and McSorley,

               Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson,

               maybe the fat nude, too

On the bustling sidewalk

as the last gray light slides

               between concrete walls

I move brokenly, madness

a hunched raven on my shoulder

behind Dean & DeLuca’s glass

the elegant consume

               and defecate elsewhere

invisible yet ubiquitous

I shit on dark corners

urinate with the feral

apologia to Lowry

               but I am his pariah dog

               still alive in the ravine

howling, quietly howling

Educated with the elite

Stuyvesant then Yale

in the Seminary I became

               a brother of inculcation

so I taught God’s children

the nun Betty and I

               fell in love’s despair

we quit our vows to marry

               we ate acid

quickly madness won us over

with fists we fought

our words weapons of delight

Betty took a train to

               somewhere, leaving then

this tunnel in my brain

a small black smudge

with their pills the shrinks

               would me heal a hole

At McSorley’s I swept up

for simple cash and food

washed pots and pans despite

the burgeoning smear

               which one night

blotted the running bullshit

               leaving the mind a nub

               where the raven pecks

I am searching the streets

catching the last sliding light

               on my hunched form

the pariah dog is here

               is here somewhere

Call me Jimmy

I’m not fat, I’m obese

nowhere to hide, pal

but I learned something

people love you

               if you’re real fat

I mean, really huge

you save them

So I got my first job

               in Coccia’s on 7th Street

               Italian sit-down deli

Jewish actors from Second Avenue

Ukey Moms from the block

laborers, clerks from Wannamaker’s

number-runners an’ schoolkids

               you know the years

               how they quietly roar by

I was the best short-order guy

               ate like a champ