MAYAKOVSKY IN NEW YORK

Thanks for stopping by
from Russia
you electric poet
meeting us,
Whitman's heirs
we welcome you
please fill your hip pockets
with verse
in the first light
tell us in gestures
the story of exile
in your own words
as only a poet
on the margins
of a surface existence knows
encounter us
with red roses
in our hunger to be loved
your presence
on this vagrant avenue
for our lyrical adventure
kiss us on the homeless streets
hear the ram's horn
in Hebrew prayer chants
for Messianic deliverance
now a golden trumpet
played by a black man
of the long suffering
at ground zero,
you are our hero, Mayakovsky
of those who are abandoned
lost and found
in this pawnshop life.