STEVE PEARCY

On The Horrible Effect
Of Reading Henry Miller and T.S. Eliot
on the Very Same Day

Mona lisa, mona lisa, lisa darling:
mourning song of the nostalgic set.
Forget now of arabs and persians
as we slowly crawl out of bed

to wander down the street, sliding on the ice
worrying a little if last night's bed had lice.
Our weeks are many, well, at least two
before our thoughts and toes turn blue.

Prufrock is dead as are the rest.
At the airport, not
On the road, will be our best.

Serial killers, rapists, and their friends
have recovered the city's sewers and dead ends
from writers' workshops and institutes,
where whores are again prostitutes
and each drives a mercedes benz.

Time to walk on a wilder side
than the day before yesterday's Far Side.
Today Lou Reed heard his biggest line
playing on a jukebox in a Jersey diner
for a dime.

No homework, no heroes, no H-M-O
and, after AIDS, no such thing as a good homo
and it is getting harder all the time
to be a simple honest hobo—
interviewed at six and eleven
perhaps a calendar shot to sign with his pen;
the heating grates are getting crowded
what with all the mods of the open-hearted.

What will as quarter do?
A phone call, a peep show for a minute or two?
So give it to him, the short old guy
who's giving the dumpsters a thorough try.

So now a couple seconds at the used bookstore
(see if they have a guidebook for lore),
then put your plastic and wallet back
in with your sandwich in your belly sack.

And after a cup of McDonald's coffee,
we'll walk off together, yeah, you and me
but do not ask "will it be true?"
for it's still enough to see, to do.