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Two Poems
Joel Lewis
At the Shrine of Lou Costello, Paterson
There's a lot I want to say
in this voice, but nothing seems
to fit. Some shakiness
on the curbs & I'll use this
downtime to seal up this sack of crullers
& board this Paterson-bound cruiser that
still traces the old route to college
& back then, as now: brainless
as a biscuit, the same old strange
daydreams of Gramsci playing drums
with Ornette Coleman. So, I'm not
a pilgrim, I just play one on TV
& I have some stupid human estrangement
in this city, but I hope I won't run into him
& the buildings seem colored in
by magic marker, nothing to say really,
but saying it, at the Great Falls
I stand alone with my language, the chlorine
sting stands in advance of the real night.
When It Blows Its Stacks
Prolix Guatemala Antigua "Large" hits
in soft, familiar, caffeine sparks
now everyone on Maiden Lane is speaking Ladino
Big dog bad dog grabs dog dump with a McDonald's napkin
- is this live or somewhat symbolic?
And from the Bureau of Orphaned Thoughts:
Memories of a State & Revolution study group
cigarettes & scowls a line for Silliman.
See water: East River.
And at 20 Gold Street, 4th Floor
The Academy of Good Handwriting
Strange, crazy autumn weather
"A real hunger for the Beach Boys"
- one of my unmentioned thoughts
Shift gears to volume & attitudes
the rippling language of postcard discourse
who is announcing a reading under the guise of friendship?
Out in Nauru, the guano keeps getting shoveled out of trenches ...
Trencherman? - A professional eater
Memory of Bozo Miller, Oakland, CA, Guiness Book Immortal
63 Dutch apple pies in 60 minutes, December 2, 1961,
at the Montana State Fair.
lingo 5
Books in print by Joel Lewis
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