Gorkyland: In Every Standing Ditch
There are poets in every standing ditch, in every animal shelter, playground, back alley, in Central Square; there are poets in short skirts bent over taking hog front and back in the men’s toilet of Phoenix Landing, refugees from the dressing rooms of Hubba Hubba. There are poets stacked like dead bodies in the back of Cambridge Police paddy-wagons. There are poets eating pizza on the corner of Mass Ave and Brookline St. passing Rouble Vodka back and forth in a plastic, pint bottles, sitting in the front window, sideways. There are poets with hard-ons in the Salvation Army Worship Hall with nowhere to go. They listen to bands and drink Sapporo; they listen to live music and drink Bushmills.
There are poets who have no place to keep books. There are poets who hate books; they are after all like head-lice and bedbugs. There are poets who have hepatitis A, B, and C. They have tuberculosis. They are young and have no idea what HIV is. The never ask themselves what women want? Or, what are women are for? They think dogmas are off the leash. They pee on walls. They fill up the hopper in the McDonald’s men’s room with so much shit it won’t hold anymore. They are not registered to vote. They think Mitt Romney is already President of the United States. They know that Mormons are aliens from outer space. There are poets who blow off their case-worker. There are poets who check out Samuel Beckett’s Letters, Vol. 2, and take it with them wherever they go, wrapped up in dry-cleaner plastic. There are poets in Central Square who think Dr. Martin Luther King is a PCP, and that he can’t possibly assuage Michelle Obama’s anger. There are poets, there are poets, there are poets, in every standing ditch. They expect no mercy; they will have no mercy; they give no mercy.
Maxim Gorky, the 3rd.
Copyright 2012 Der Zuschauer.
