Don’t walk away, Renee,

700 francs will get you $109.91on this muggy May afternoonwhich is good to know sinceI just found 700 francs in my walletwhile Dinah Washington was singing‘My Old Flame’ I was thinking of whereI was with Glen when Allen Ginsberg diedand if I could relax for one hourif I knew what that felt likeit would seem…

on poetry and painting asubject that fascinates meusually, but today is not asusual, being today, white sky,decent amount of sunlight,forty one degrees in Central Park,and it makes sense to dream ofChicago, another big citywith two major league ballclubs,and the pleasure of seeing Pauland you, too, Elaine, whomI never get to see often enoughin our own…

And when she says, ‘I’ll never speak to you again,’she means, ‘Put your arms around me from behindas I stand disconsolate at the window.’He’s supposed to know that.When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginiaor he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading,or…

the air and head for the nearest cliff? Thisunreasonable attachment to the blissof falling — what accounts for it? Unlike the hissannouncing a reptilian presence, the word Abysscreates the object of our dread: it exists, it is,widening like the gulf between whis-key and wine, and we, drunk on neither, missthe days when we, too, tumbled…

a birdcage and no moonbut the breeze was whistlingand the sound of a caron Valentine Place wasthe rush of a waterfallon the phone in New York Cityand that’s when the museturned up with curly brown locksshe was a poet, too, and wantedme to give her an assignmentshe was willing to tradefifteen minutes of inspirationin return…

so I duck into my favorite barber shopand listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirrorreflecting the shopfront windows, Broadwayand 104th, and watch the dots blown by the windblow into the faces of the walkers outside& here comes a thin old man swaddled in scarves,he must be seventy-five, walking slowly,and in his mind there is…