Strummer Wall

The Dudes' New York Trip

obscure in your relevance – New York City - sept. 2006

A sidewalk café
on a September day
in the Village
me
Rory &
Southside Ed
grabbin a bite
and a few beers
just hangin
until we make our way
to the Garden
to see The Who
on the way
we grab one last peek
at CBGB (OMFUG)
the graffiti walls
(it’s art!)
and the bathroom walls
decorated with the angry scrolls
of the bands
who pumped life
into the long
thin
performance space
no packed room now
no smell of beer
and people
unable to avoid each other
bumping around
like pinballs
with loud
kick ass
music orchestrating
each movement

now it is still
a coffin
for the dreams
and memories
left behind

me and southside
needed a picture
of us standing beneath
the club’s
legendary awning

Across the street
we see
the relatively new
Bowery Poetry Club
so we know
life goes on
one old - out
the new
providing life

we know life goes on
and along the way
we lose things
like CBGBs
and Tower Records
and the New Haven Coliseum
and many other places
and people

another reminder of that
came when we happened upon
Niagara
in the East Village
with its
Joe Strummer painted side
“The future is unwritten…
know your rights!”

The Who
are still here
and we celebrate that
on this afternoon

I wonder if I ask too much
from The Who
who we always seem
to place
unreasonably high expectations on
sometimes I think
I ask too much of some artists
like Ray Davies (a personal favorite –
and rock’s poet laureate)
I don’t just listen to Ray
I demand he carry
my nostalgia -
like a bellhop
carrying vacation luggage

The Who, meanwhile
answered the call
we all want to grasp moments from our past
while still pleading
for relavance
in the future
and the now

The Who seemed
to mirror this
for us…
and they delivered!
(always do!)
even though Pete Townshend
looks like
the old cranky bastard
you’d expect to see
on a porch
yelling at some kids
to get off of his property

(I guess he’s doing that musically, too)

afterwards
me
Rory &
Southside Ed
take a late train back
watching the lights
of a vibrant city
turn into blurry streaks
as we leave
I alternately doze
and watch people
as we depart the Grand Central Station chamber
the train a bullet
back to connecticut

Poets- Megaphone Mike and Graaaahm

Las Vetas Cafe, downtown Fairfield, open mic the first Monday of every month.

Tough Girl

Tough Girl – (started March 1992 – last updated Feb. 1, 2007) - to Kelly, whose strength I will never doubt, and Sara, whose strength is still unforgetable

I always knew
if Kelly and I
had a little girl
she would be tough
like her mother

Sara was a tough girl
her heart beating
strong
& loud
through a fetal monitor
strapped to Kelly’s belly
in Yale-New Haven Hospital

for two days
Sara’s heart kept
beating
strong
even after the doctors
at Yale-New Haven Hospital
gave up on her
and told us
Sara wouldn’t live
through childbirth

most of the nurses
stopped helping after that
even though Kelly
suffered – and struggled -
through pain
and needed the help -
she really needed the help -
they wouldn’t give

Kelly and Sara
had a pact
it seemed.
neither were giving up

in a still hospital room
lights off
shades drawn
Kelly and I could hear
the afternoon sounds:
cars passing outside
soap operas in the next room
and Sara’s heart
beating
fiercely
a few strands of sunlight
fighting -
stretching - their way
through slight openings
in the curtain
and into the room

i swear
through that fetal monitor
Sara was saying
“I can make it”
and we
desperately
wanted to believe her

i almost thought
the doctors
at Yale New Haven Hospital
who abandoned us
thought Sara might
make it.
otherwise
why would they leave
the fetal monitor
behind
(uncaring and cruel?)

when Sara
was born
after an excrutiating
(needlessly painful)
labor by Kelly
at Yale New Haven Hospital
Sara took
what appeared to be
one breath
(the nurse
said it wasn’t)
one memorable
movement
to engrain herself
in our spirits
and then
Sara
was
still