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excerpt from NEW YORK a haibun journey

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Marc Awodey and may not be distributed or
reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Numb Flesh

virgins stalk dumbo
dressed in black like Ezra Pound
before his capture

Talented, abused people. His eyes could not meet any other eyes. David muttered
dull obscenities
upon seeing a few exposed boards
of hardwood floor smothered
under green linoleum.
There are many talented people.
Pickled eggs
in a gallon jar. A table cloth.
A greasy vinyl table cloth.
A scab of dried ketchup reddish brown
and cracked rots on a greasy vinyl table cloth.
Rhymes like raw colors danced
an odd little jig behind his eyes. Moor.
Door. Whore. Deplore. Ignore.
Semaphore- he grinned
over Semaphore. It reminded him of boats
in distress, and that he was still wearing
his pea coat.
He had once watched a gutted cabin cruiser get way hauled away
onto a hill of slime- at the city dump
sunk- stabbed in the back
by a guy in Oakley sunglasses,
and a filthy captain's hat
acting like he was nervous
about disposing of a fiberglass boat that way.. .
as seagulls circled and laughed.
The dump in high summer has an indescribable fetor. An unwashable stench. It just needs to wear off
over time.

***
Jim Morrison yowls
don't you love her madly
as the glitter ball
turns

john Berryman
growled at a wide-eyed
sophomore class- you will never know
the old navigator would soon hoist sail
farewells to the wind
fly for the edge
to savor
the syntax of obscurity's
blank verse sonnet

toe
nail
in the night
manumit these
manuscripts
let me be-
dismissed

dumbo, dumbo, drum
in and out the artists go
waxed before they wane
frayed sheaf of vanities
my advantage
sabotaged
wait for Waskow-

maybe you should move!
the artists carp
of cold lofts
i've survived
on ice
twisting through gutters
dumbo- my mind
paris green
soon- erasure marks

i wish haiku were fiction
i'd give a
kidney
for it to be so

it's an evil journey-
no eurydice- why go?
without beatrice
i'm lost
dumbo
limbo-
cock fights
don't you love her
madly
joey heaves
pantoums

let's call it haibun
shoot my insulin- weaving
men's room
no Stanhope

needle
in the trash
diabetics should not drink-
let's call this eating
and then
remember
boston after the reading-
let's call that
talking

where has Waskow gone?
him and grad school Eric
prance
dumbo studios-
two hours this dive
stuck- a pinned down frog
on york street
spinning haiku tops

wrinkled leaves
besiege-
kid artists- jabber walking
hearts quick, hearts tranquil
on the rocks
good friday
york street lights
glow redder
dumbo grows fatter
o k
stranded here-
got no keys
into brooklyn
can't read subway maps

fatalistic plan
it's like playing
a tabla
how my fingers tap
squeezing new york ticks
maybe we’ll see something
once
we escape the lips
my harmonica
it's back home- snow entombs
vermont i'd play it here

dumbo- lofty met-
rip the F from MFA
i should warn Eric
i should
cast this out-
a message in a coke can
drifts down
lake champlain

dumbo dumb
foul play
disgust marauds
my griege gut no-
this ain't haiku
Kerouac
i think
seeing Issa-
hallucinated his haiku

now joey goes home
my crisscrossed vision cannot
quite make out my home
love fear loss
home sea
nyc brooklyn boston
vermont met dumbo

some ulla-lulla-
borrowed blanket
for guinness
all down the
granite

everyday- i guess poorly
place, win,
or show?
dumbo chum dumber-
how come

you don't teach?
i only know
cigarettes
confer cigarettes
Ulysses- green puffs
sailing through my spectacles
blindly wandering

dumbo- you hammer
thanks for showing me
this grin
a fine evening
thanks
york street- thanks
this helmet fits just fine
-makes the welkin
ring

snow
on his beat boots
camels became parliaments
while night
slaughtered him

twenty bucks-
water
greek town,
brooklyn,
boston,
new york
has a thousand eyes
i only see lines
-bottles in lines
-rest room lines
can't unencrypt them

where is Cezanne?
where are the pigeons
i didn’t feed at the met?
the kids double up
to shade couple, and
connect dots with soft
pencils

five parlements-
Giotto's angels roll
into purgatory

new artists appear
-sir, can i have this seat?
i say-
help yourself
his head
thinks it's a figure of speech-
i near psychosis
poems all amplified
the long grin- the figures
of speech

budweiser is swill
one blue match
from the Stanhope
game shows from
hades
ramble
foreign tongue-
de paroles vacante
et ce corps
alourdi
symbolists grope-
drunken bastards- hash eaters
stillborn in a jar
misshapen haiku
this poem will only fail
when it is published

get me
out of
here
dumbo- acronyms
abound like no
don't say it
it's getting too tight
17 gaunt syllables

the butcher
splatters

and our roman heads!
weeping for red tuscany
what could i have done?

Eric- you must smoke!
what good is grad school if you don’t
yes- smoke like a ham
blitter dall gumbo
my fear and dear vermont
i will tumble there

salons of boston!

i will come and read to you
of paris
green bronze
where the fuck
Waskow?

-how can i illuminate
chained to a
damned stone?

artists leave
artists arrive
from frozen york street-
they crave the warm seats
i lust haiku truth
how few books you really sold
how few oil paintings
how few parliaments
is that box really crush proof
is budweiser gall
must gold be so foul

is alle kunst ist lokal
for real? if so why?
why bother going?
to new york city ever?
shun Cezanne? haiku?

Dante! Orpheus!
guide my ambergris to light
Ulysses- your bow

where in hell
Waskow-
i can dig no deeper here
it beats
it's still warm
is this not enough?
must i throw it on the bar
drag it
through the snow?