ISSUE 9

Ken Holland

 

Sepia Life

He cited Catholic heresy,
claimed the city was trying
to divorce him,

it was winter, their relationship
down to bedrock, his face the color
of gothic towers, of pylons sunk
in the East River, the cement
he sometimes slept on.

Knew where all the great writers
had lived: Willa Cather, Bank Street,
ee cummings, Christopher Street.
John Cheever, Jane Street.

Air honed with frigidity,
the nearest shelters shut
for the night: the Bowery,
Lafayette, East 4th.

 

On East 4th, Hunter Thompson.
Ginsburg and Burroughs, East 7th.

Steam rises through the teeth
of the steel grates, he can feel
the pressure beneath his feet,
the sidewalks arcing up, ready
to blow, the streetlights eating
their own illumination.
Steinbeck, Salinger, Capote.

 

His mother and her tight smile,
laid up in bed away from
the light, her body like a prop.

​

Eugene O’Neill, born in the
Barrett Hotel, 43rd and Broadway.
Tennessee Williams, found dead
in his suite at the Hotel Elysee,
East 54th.

The snow is sweeping in
from Jersey, white silk over all

the restlessness, over the currents
of the Hudson, the waters of the Sound,
Melville, Hemingway, Kerouac,
the deep recess of a doorway
on Spring Street, pulling all he owns
about him.

                        From the loft above
music muscles through brick
and glass, through the drowning
wind, the fist of his voice, body
singing, mind caught upon time.

​​​

​

​