Monday, November 29, 2010

no libs

south broad’s valu-plus is closing. everything must go
til day’s reflection is night’s, your passing face barters
for itself against the blackness pulling thru us. threads:
kids from south philly high walk by, their shithole of a
school on their shoulders, not anyone’s. let the asians
and blacks have at each other, say the old whites, shrug-
ging themselves off to the young whites in their patient
bossworship that builds and builds a box to be gutted
between dollar tree and footlocker. kids are actually
small, smelly goats, terry eagleton, the british critic,
reminds us americans. i look out of my box: no parade
of marxist profs. i would like to be open. hey, if northern
liberties on the other side of town burns to the ground
i’m fine with that, so long as we plant a giant sign in
the middle of all the smoking rubble: AMERICA’S FIRST
SUBURB. sure, crumb cake from kaplan’s and coffee
walking around the ortlieb brewery ruins and the jazz
that came from a corner of it—i’ll sell you the postcards—
i’m selling them right now, in fact, for nothing. but that
giant sign i’ll especially sell you, dirt cheap, and we’ll
make it pretty.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Monday, November 8, 2010

art as experience

in passing john calls john dewey j-dew, which makes everything infinitely
more watchable. go phillies like a bus, half hours, half flowers, to valu-
plus for flip-flops and a new notebook—marble, like my stoop. i stand
on the book, its title,
valu-plus, arrived home on a sticker, yellow, with
a price: a buck, a holler. after that we’re free to have our hazards. love
ages me, but not that two people were murdered a half block from me
this week. the barista lays down a napkin and spoon even when you’re
just getting it to go. front-to-back three years ago a night this november
i tore thru
splay anthem while this place was called something else, and
i thought i felt the whole world sail thru a map in my chest, knocked on
wood a lesson: bare hands, bare hands, no lie: you’ll never understand
yourself in isolation. a hair on your selfish city’s chest, you will mistake
selfishness for independence again. again, you will catch yourself being
a republican to yourself. if i’m beaten, who can tell. not me, anymore.
not me, anymore.