The City
by Preston Hagerman
Through somnambulant wanderings I come to a city in my head
a city of vast and fast vitality and prodigious brilliance
illuminated by the ghostly viridescent glow of the Western eve
As I pass through that always sleepless city you see in movies
and hear Howled about in Other Poems
I come upon a pack of sororicidal Soroptimists who tussle over kindly clientele
like starving carnivorous cats and a fresh sloppy kill
I press on, stumbling with torpid intransigence
through the black singing ghosts of a Harlem bred fifties trio
who subsist in Jazz and song on a lonely hipster’s boulevard
to serenade the dim street lighted night of lost and wanting wanderers
Where I am bombarded by hoards of raggedy clothed rugged faced
yuppie outcasts voluntarily outcast from privileged lives
and stratospherically high on waves of Benzedrine and psilocybin
that guide them through otherwise soporiferous nights
to pre-light mornings of poeticized sybaritic encounters
until these fantastical and frantic Beat Gen fanatics gravitate with ease
through university streets in groups to Six Gallery reminiscent nights
to regurgitate with pretty syllabic rhythmic sounds their youthful angst in art
or the too few who dig deep enough in pain to weep and spew on stage
their free verse calm collected rage
These free willed fresh faced transcendental troubadours
inspired and obsessed possessed by the city
take me with them as we make our way
to late night pharmacies for pockets full of Coriciden
to roam and float with slow moving clouds
and come down like settling fog
upon the black shingles of a coffee shop klatch
Denied of our sweet bitter treat of caffeine
they strip and frenetically thrust their naked cadaverous frames
into populated market squares
stylistically screaming their anguish to the alabaster moon:
How/How/How
How am I supposed to write my damn poetry
How/How/How
How am I supposed to go to work today
Suddenly present day McCarthyites
march unto the scene laden in police uniforms
wearing the face of modern misunderstanding
and brandished in the sheepskin pages
of their little black book of blacklisted behavior
The generations are going to war
but at least there is a dialogue
It’s love and hate in the night
as I saunter about
going to battle with my companions
and as our groups meet face to scolding face
in the unholy union of war
I feel the sudden undercurrents of dawn
swathe its fingers around my astral body
and force me back into the harsh vicissitudes
of conscious flesh
In the warm confines of my apartment
I peer through the open window
as the Tri-City tenements across the way
tower above the tenebrous population below
while milky Mother Moon looms in the starry distance
casting the great city’s bright eyed silhouette
I shed a single silver tear
of poignant disappointment
as the beauty of the night dies and dissipates
later reborn
to be the ugly day
In the city of a diminutive lifeless glow
stained across the iridescent sky of the western morn
