I ran into my old friend Curtis yesterday, way uptown — the edges of Harlem. We’d been in a drug detox program together many years ago, long before they became fashionable and assumed the look of Ivy League campuses.

I have walked these streets so often I could
forge the shadows of skyscrapers as they fall
to rest between the sculptured air of midtown.

Day changes from cannon to morning glory
her body dances death dances in the prell light

beads strung out all through Japan’s public parks, my head,

Sat for three days in a white room 
a tiny truck of white flowers 
was driving through the empty window

Now the trees tempt
the young girl below them

I was a young pilot in World War I, remember?
do you know the feeling of an airplane crashing the water’s edge?

we’ve just traveled 600 miles, and the only person

Blue poles (well ?) on the beach
in a snowless winter and

I’m too cold to ask you 

It was the warmest Oct. day out that I ever saw today, so we skipped practice (Tony and Yogi and I) and we decided to take a little ride down to the ferry and over to Staten Island. After polishing off a hero at LUCY’S we hopped on the back fender of the 2nd Ave. bus and rode down to the ferry basin.