E 140th Street Redemption Song

E 140^th Street Redemption Song

Micah Towery

I may write

the saddest words I heard

the old man on the corner say:

my baby, she left me

without a word, without

a mumblin’ word.

It’s like some

bullshit hallelujah

someone has been singing for years,

and we are all waiting

to be called sons again.

Tonight I find

that there is nothing left

of my prayers but the moon,

which is knotted like a rosary

in the night, hung without care

on a rearview mirror.

There are Latin women

pouring out onto the sidewalks

from gay bars

and we wonder if we still might

have a chance.

I may write the saddest words

again—the victim, the paschal lamb

in front of a joyful crowd—

but it would be

as if the

cat’s tongue were rubbing

its own sandpaper.

The crackheads look

sad in the blue-in-green

glow of my dash,

hungry on the stoop without a fix. They know

how rain falls on the wicked,

and the king is never

without a lover.

At the Spool Art Gallery

See that we have taken what you gave us as children
that we have beautified our inheritance
what we have lost and regained through processes unknown to us
that music has come from our anxious hearts

and we sleep by it

on our beds beside the thin man

who plays his wide guitar

O, Our mothers and fathers:
were you never this excited for your creations?

These are your faces to us—

always turned away.

...so, this poem is pretty old. i just found it going through some old stuff. it's not great, but hey, i haven't posted in a while, so you'll take what you can get, right?

Moth (Psalm 39)

Fearing your violent side, I tried to keep

my mouth shut when I saw how you’d

rigged this game to destroy beauty—

and not just beauty, but the chintzy,

low-brow smut that I like too—

devoured whenever the moth is hungry.

But you always hated the grudging

“Yes,” and made me broach the issue

of how you snatch away our beauty

in gloating silence, leave us bleached

like belly-up whales on the sand’s ecru.

Not even a bone to gnaw when I’m hungry?

It’s either you or vanity…

what else is there for hope? True,

this might have been your point: beauty

is the bitter sponge of lye you lift up daily

to our mouths, while you consume

us with the blows of your hand, your beauty

like a moth, always feeding, and still hungry.

fell in love with a girl

some lost haiku i found and refashioned