February 02, 2006
"Evening Constituional of a Bowery Eccentric."
I cash in my change for a slice of pizza
and wipe the grease off my hands on the windows of the
Cooper Union library,
then I show the Cooper Union kids my dick.
I zigzag to the Asian Pub where a sign says
they got four dollar mojitos.
It’s hard to hear me tapping on the glass over whatever kinda
music they play in there but one girl’s staring out absentmindedly
so I show her my dick.
The people who work at the Village Voice are
just getting off of work and the ones heading north,
towards the magic-hour pink Empire State Building,
they get to see my dick,
‘cause I show it to ‘em.
Same for the cute girls in glasses who work at Kaplan Test Prep,
and their students:
They’re all gonna get a perfect 1600
on the have-I-showed-you-my-dick test.
The folks at B Bar underneath heat lamps and trees wrapped
in Christmas lights, they do spit takes with nine dollar drinks
when they see a dick,
not just any dick,
mine.
CBGBs is gonna close down, they say, so to the ghosts
of the past, of the old New York, I say:
go not quietly into that good night
but instead go: “Holy shit, look at that guy’s dick!”
I go into the shelter and get some soup
and some bread on a plastic tray,
thank Marla by showing her my dick,
then ask Ray Ray if I can sit with him
through the universal language of dick on display.
“Jesus,” Ray Ray says, “get a new fuckin’ trick, Al.”
Later on Bowery and Houston I smoke a butt.
The giant black-and-white Calvin Klein models show me their
asses and all their breasts save the nipples,
so I return the favor by showing ‘em my dick,
and all the speeding cabs in the world,
they get my dick, too.
Then I spit a loogie into the gutter and think
about the hurtful thing that Ray Ray said.