BEGGING TO BE ALIVE

Begging to be alive
in a raggedly Andy world

among tapestries
and frescoes

of the Factory
somewhere over the rainbow

with Judy Garland
at the Punchbowl

mid century
of Minelli in Berlin stories

rests only on Cabaret memory
of the Borsht belt comedian

somewhere in the Catskills
a young handsome waiter

is reading Greham Greene
in a Russian translation.