REMEMBERING GREENWICH VILLAGE

Charlie Parker at "The Open Door"
audible in rushing shadows
on the Big Apple's fresh air's edge
of moving moonlight riffs
by the last gig's tinted windows
on the first floor
talking past Jackson Pollock
whose finishing fingers
touch my life in drawing me
into the Beat of O'Hara
from young company players
actors on off off Broadway
discussed between my lines
on the first stage of memory
passing into vitality in the Village
summons a desired fired up
shift of companion languages
nearly outdone by pictures cast
by abstract expressionists
whose spark never goes out
in the dark alleys of our alto sax
or at an art pavilion
by a shout out in the absence of time
when in the course of night
on the piano's music left hand
is embraced by the timeless ashcan
turned over by graffiti walls
from the New York school
poetry never ages to give ourselves
away to Manhattan's new arrivals
of cleverly born exiles
by Ellis Island or Sing Sing
tuned onto the light spring rain
over in Flushing Meadows.