FRIDAY NIGHT

After the peace march
you emerged in the city
walking alone
with a home made sign
speaking against war
without a moment
to drink green tea in a glass
like our grandparents
but you cleverly manage
to cut the lemon,
four ways
from the farmer's market
burying my daily worries
as we remembered playing
backgammon and chess
when we were in advanced
algebra two math class
of Mr. Feeney
who was so poor
he wore his tweed suit
from the Goodwill
every day
but your nana
fixed his buttons
before our last exams
in the long corridors
of the library hallways
years later
we saw each other
in the Big Apple
at the poetry slams
as you intersected me
on my motorcycle
suddenly flakes of snow
appear on my old pea jacket
by a rush of city traffic
as sirens go off
at the red light
lost near a Soho district
where we did disco dancing
along the tinted bars
where I once played sax riffs
in weary alley ways
smelling of marijuana
with a chip on the old block
of my Manhattan street
where I met expressionists
in their cold starry eyed lofts
at a series February storms
yet hide to get our bones warm
by visiting the Cedar Tavern
drinking beer, wine
or Mexican tequila
talking at the revolutionary back
of Pollock,O'Hara, and Rothko
those now famous artists
along with their poet friends
who became mine,
Ginsberg, Kerouac, Franz Kline
Leroi Jones, Greg Corso.