POEMS BY GREG MCGHEE kate she is listening to the radio wearing a black dress and shawl lost to her inner thoughts drinking her morning coffee kate's faded blue eyes study a photograph very frail thin and stooped she still capable of fierceness as winter slip into spring looking at the old yellowed family portrait at the center is military officer with decorations standing by him old man wearing a vest and two well groomed young men stand by him in white dinner jackets the young women are dressed in the latest fashions kate has been drug in taverns all around the town of paterson n j her face wrinkled by years of hard drinking the officer in the photograph die of heart failure the two young men were killed in a forgotten war the old man die she cannot remember why the lady's faded from her life like a long forgotten summer day her black locks are gray now in the photo she looks so young she is one with the atoms and the plants in a timeless universe as past and present blend together in the wilderness of her life a ship a drift in a sea of daydreams filled with the smell of sausage fried onions and sauerkraut sizzling in grease rising from the blast furnace of her mind in the haze of cigarette smoke from ancient pine forests cast in pewter filled with morning sunlight of dreams kate worked in a city laundry for 30 years and now play bingo at the church across the street in the autumn of her life. / paterson, nj, 1993 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ the angel the night passing into a television as angel think about cut himself with a razor early on eerie morning he feeling dehumanized losing his grasp just cruising in his van his mind is burning the air is filled with smoke his face is blank he losing himself in a desert of madness fill with hallucinates of a man eating monster that has a gravely jersey accent and wear black lace up boots he blink his eyes in disbelief staring dejectedly at oldsmobile that pass him by his old van wheezing in a cloud of blue smoke dressed in a leather motorcycle jacket and leather cap with dark sunglasses a half smoked marlboro in his mouth he squatting in a burned out building in n y c feeling like he turning into a statue fill with terror living in the litter strewn ruins of a manhattan tenement with a cracked facade and broken windows as drool is running down his face making him look like alien light up other marlboro in a lonely east side diner around 4 am he is writing poetry on old white lined paper about punks with spiked blue hair and skinheads he sit over endless cups of expresso then going back to his squat laying on a white mesh blanket covering a steel framed bed all he can hear is silent as grainy grayness surround his hollow face vacant eyes as coldness fill his bones his body is gaunt and rigid then his body shuddered convulsively it will not respond to commands from his brain to stop sweat run down his face he is mumbling incoherently his thoughts all jumbled and mix up praying to god tears trickling down his pale cheeks chain smoking playing with his dick he grab a razor the voices are telling him to cut it off but he race out of his place and jump into his van and ride into the city night / paterson, nj, 1993 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ dream time washington dc in 1984 passing a quart of beer back and forth sitting on a wall looking at the cars moving up and down 14th street he talking about his ex wife marxist class struggle anarchy drugs bitching moaning he did time in ohio and virginia in the joint 24 months each time he talking about a pill head he known when he was in jail life on the streets dudes we both know the bottle empty we both walk off into the night i end up studying washington dc from the roof of 1345 euclid street feeling anger and sadness inside of me burning the city lights in the night outline the monuments archives museums the whitehouse it seem to me this place is the high altar of the money ministers the power popes who run the machine the ruling class thinking about a friend who got his 30 day pin from aa he has been sober that long my mind rushing down the years seeing other folks i have known with drinking problems turning over odd bits and pieces of information year in year out workers laboring in anger on spanish land from dawn to dusk on private owned farms communist dream of a worker state a government in which all members share in the work and product the anarchist dream of no state or government just the people will april 4 1931 the second republic was born general union of workers and the anarchist led national confederation of labor 1936 the popular front of the left july 18 19 the military rose in rebellion nationalists rightists conservatives defense of the historic privileges of the catholic church monarchists and the fascist party in 1939 the republic fall in a bloodbath of a 3 year war in 1949 the last guerrilla operations were dissolve november 20 1975 the war ended general francisco franco die and tonight i stand on a roof in washington dc studying the night @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 8 4 93 reading a racin form over a beer on a paterson saturday new jersey afternoon in a tavern smoking a lucky strike he go and call his bookie betting on a horse sitting at the bar as the rusted mechanical bartender wipe it his money is blow away on the wind as faceless wolves chew on his legs they are made of goop that stick to his fingers as their shadows clutch at his mind with a glass punk who has a blue mohawk and is lost in asphalt rivers of alienation as marching televisions are coming out from his mind in hi tech neon of his microwave corpse smelling like rancid garlic sitting in a room with only himself and mirror filled with emptiness for twenty long years with out coherent thought he wants to return to ra in a sacred ship to the city of the dead with his shatter mind in mental chaos from endless beers and trying to get rich from playing the horses and trying to escape a monster himself stumbling frantically and hysterical through life with patterns colors and murmur of his fear his face a roadmap of days and nights of heavy drinking red bloated he is lost in his delusions of grandeur with voices coming from his jukebox of dreams he ran numbers and was a smalltime bookie and got into some other two bit rackets that have fall from his pale faded blue eyes he broke so he call a barbarian loanshark to help him out he will pay and pay to the misfit mercenary on steroids or that mutant terrorist will use his fists or a bat to get his money back the poor sweet dude will keep drinking gambling and dreaming his life away / paterson, nj, 1993 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ late night dreaming my skull seem to have an asshole in it and i needed a new brain this one was fill with bouts of destruction depression then somehow became cover in last night love cheese of a jerk off fantasy dream and had a damn chrome helmet on my head that hide my brain that was the color of muted november sunlight in this same dream i was fill with golden waves and then i moved slowly down a street lost in a silver fog of a crimson soft light in yellow pools and dark halls at midnight wrapped in shadows across ruined ramparts in fractured patterns of purple phosphorescent rippling across my eyes in a flaming summer sun outline in blues and grays in a rainbow connection yellows oranges violets indigos rushing through my head now i have a glassface that on a journey through a sunset of pinks and reds and i am me again and go through the city of night gentle and quit moving like a cloud along catacombs of roads decorated with stones and bones in a darking autumn afternoon of purple heather and white yellow light fading into blue shadows in the flicker of a monet across dark towers cover in vinyl of the lost city of found objects in a cosmic dream cave of polyester in burning oranges and earth browns neon golden reds with a thousand points of light coming from a space age penis on a brilliant graffiti covered wall that is on the right side of the brain with fluorescent and incandescent light in a soft glowing palette mosaic of negative space against a deep blue sky of a new horizons of tranquil forests as a river run through my face and spray paint come out of my eyes with televisions of subconscious dreams systems and rhythmic changes motion in subterranean subways of silent videos filled with blending vibrations in a strange season of blue in a quiet time of tv dinners and pink golden toilet paper in a low pulsing drone of a shining moon of glass 15 minutes before sunset fill with soft light of the city in a high wind of fear and death with illusion of depth in the badlands cover in scarlet of temperature climate controlled modular home of a cyberpunk with a stainless steel skull with brainrot living his backstreet dreams in a blackhole this is stuff dreams are made of 1992 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@