OUT OF CHELSEA

Out of Chelsea
walking by a bathhouse
out of the closet
of noted poets
by daddy's safe deposit
after picking up his savings
putting on a blue collar
not giving a damn
remembering his brother
coming back home
as a paraplegic in Nam
and his apoplectic ravings
against Uncle Sam
near graffiti walls of sex
somewhere in the Sixties
in the day of Andy
and Candy Darling
a daring Catullus
leaves the hotel
pink and sandy eyed
and tells us
of his miracle Jesus dream
last summer
on Fire Island
amid class, race
and gender wars
in the rouged
and roughed up face
by a losing type
of skin head thugs
in striped pants
after Mark left the Fugs
to all night dance
and speak of a rendered
identity politics
to last for a dialectical
and diabolical
inherited and
unmerited generation
as Mark leaves the mezzanine
after shaving
heads for a local cafe
wishing for lox
on a bagel
with dark coffee and cream
leaving the price of mammon
for a slice
of Scandinavian salmon
to discuss Hegel
amid texts of Marx
meeting a companion
wanting to start
and sacrifice for
yet another little magazine
with bz on the cover
asking me for epigrams
of a Shavian nature
and spittle grams of dope
gratified in his own name
to satisfy his own status
and nomenclature
from an ex lover
who lost hope
last night listening to Handel
in the laundry rooms
with his clothes stolen
by a wounded Achilles
amid a hundred Trojans
by candle light.