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I Am No Queen

#babylon

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I am no Queen
I sit a widow and shall see sorrow
I kannot walk any further
my journey may end here
there are no words to take away the pain
to replace a person who is gone
my eyes are dim and heavy with grief
I kannot close them
I do not wish to see the darkness they hold
this thing which I have greatly feared
has come upon me with trembling
kausing all my bones to shake
I am scared with dreams and terrified
with visions of what will my funeral be like
when I die today at this very moment
will there be a funeral
who will come and who will pay
will they eulogize me and what will they say
leave me to sit and decay
make me your centerpiece in a chair dressed up dead
preserve me with spices, mummify me
let the birds of the air pluck me
the beast of the field tear me
till I be consumed by maggots and
dust and fly away when I die
there hath been no greater love than
that which hath been
it is the sound of Rachael mourning for
the children that never were
no one to comfort her
no where to wail lament save the ocean
why died they not from the womb
why died they not the breast prevent them from suck
why died they not the knees prevent them
why died they not give up the ghost that
no light shine upon this day
cursed be the man that saith the child is born this day
it is the wake of a funeral procession about to begin
it was a sunny day that day across the street from the graveyard
and we all laid down in our coffins to die

Have a great life, death and poetry day.

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art events

HOWL!

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And so I just happen to have one of those 1st Annual FEVA, Federation of East Village Artists, HOWL! Festival of East Village Arts The HOWL! Souvenir Books lying around that I must have gotten from Tompkins Square Park years ago, that park that finds itself somewhat infamous for that 1988 Tompkins Square Park Riot that had squatters, the homeless and everyone in between running to and/or from the police that had something to do with a curfew in that park that finds itself in the Lower East Side now called the East Village for real estate marketing purposes maybe, in that city of New York.  And so this souvenir book is really cool with its East Village culture of life and history in that neighborhood during those times. And along with that Long Live The Lower East Side poem that finds itself in this book, here is another one of the many poems and photos that finds themselves in this book also that I thought interesting to post on this blog. Free the land. Squat the world.

1966/2003

the Lower East Side/ the East Village
ethnic neighborhood/style magnet
Ukrainians, Poles, Puerto Ricans and Blacks/ -, -, – and – 
flocks of babushkas/clouds of green ringlets
strung our junkies/tranced out tourists

burned out buildings/luxury ghetto
shoebox apt $217 a month/shoebox apt. $2175 a month
there goes the neighborhood/ there goes the planet
obvious potheads/invisible alcoholics
serious yippies/secret yuppies 
the Peace Eye Bookstore/Barnes and Noble
pierogis/ raw food
xerox magazines/online entities

“US out of Vietnam!”/”US out of Iraq!”
age of innocence/age of experience
embrace the beautiful stranger/embrace the ghostly clone
acid dreams/health club mornings
who was I then?/what am I now?
(the view from the tarry roof goes on and on)

dancers in the streets/students in the dorms
danger and mystery/crowding and noise
Filmore East and the Dom/great choice of multiplexes
Leshko’s/Leshko’s
angel-headed hipsters/angel headed hipsters
free love/free anytime minutes
many little mom and pop stores/one big NYU

BUT STILL: 
the Lower East Side/ the East Village
one and the same poets and painters and musicians/musicians and painters
and poets
free to be me/free to be you

 FREE TO BE ME BEING YOU

-Michael Brownstein’s latest book is World on fire. Open City Books 

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