Madmen of the Mountain

As the stringy Russian dabs foam on a pasty businessman, the news breaks about Michael and advances quickly from spectacle to melodrama. I am called to the chair.

The barber seems drunk on antiseptic. In an accent sour as herring he babbles:

“Jackson, the other actress die, the rain- these are signs!”

“Is that Nostradamus?” I ask in that nonchalant voice you use with insane people.

“Nostrodamus, I- Ching, the Mayans.. you name it. This is sign… You know prophecy of 2012?”

“No, please enlighten me”

“Jesus is gonna return and the Jews will have to pay”

Of course they will.

I just sigh as he opens the straight razor and aims for my throat.

MOODY MORNING

J train lurching bleery eyes
Bushwick yawns below
tombstones are the tenement teeth
the people rubbing spray paint
out of crusty eyes
too many visions last night
tagged inside those walls
the faded hands crush
coffee cups and blink 1, 2, 3

this train is trying to get somewhere
it has some kind of will
twists its spine up out of the river
and calls the stops with a
“bing-bong”
like it’s a toaster oven or a microwave
and not some rambling mononlogue
about “how the sky and the earth
just aren’t getting along anymore”

Wake Up Brooklyn!
it’s a sausage and egg on a roll

Wake up!
the cranes all look moody
these forlorn eaters
playing with their knives and forks
at the murky counter of the Hudson River

Wake Up!
don’t ya’ know the bodegas
are winding up their bacheta music
this day is a diamond facet
concealed by clouds
Go ahead, cry your heart out Heaven!

when the doors of the train part
people drop like thoughts
and we’re having a conversation
about somewhere familiar
you’ve never been before