Art Girls in Cafes want more than just Coffee

The girl was feather weight - intoxicated fly that afternoon we met at Zidos
Sure had it coming, wouldn’t let up but the walls were burning with gossip
Musculars and seventeens painting their lips from the stain of coffee cups
Perpetual interrogation, no I was not god, I only wrote for an art magazine
Please get off my rocks I will not serve you here or any place next to Siam

She took out a cell phone expecting my phone number, information please
Girl wanted it right there, some unexpected copulation in her dirty white jeans
I’m good for small talk, can get the words out without all that braggadocio
So why in hell did I get the willies – this girl somehow pinning me to the counter
Letting me in on her itinerary, whacked out Dorothy Parker high on caffeine

Went over to her studio in Chelsea, an abandoned building where artists camped
You would’ve thought it was a film by Terry Gilliam, each room was a hell hole
But then again there were geniuses here, call it Andy Warhol’s warehouse
Old men sitting in shades messing with the point and shoot, winking at you
Dizzy girls holding the proverbial wine in a plastic cup, walking in and out

In a sense this was heaven for artists, a place where wannabes had died and gone
Come to be with the sons and daughters of makeup artists and obstetricians
I entered the war zone from the dark streets, made my way through a crowd
I found her crouched like a pet dog, almost as if she was feeding from a bowl
The paintings before me had potential but she was such a pest like rotting candy

There were guests in the room; of course she had to have made offers to others
If she was supposed to get her due, she must have kanoodled more than me
Isn’t that what they do, get high hopes from executives they give head to
The more I stayed the more I felt I was at a bad orgy where people stood still
Without any charisma, thinking they were actually made of something special

A slim, tall and tender long haired girl popped in have a look see, she was an artist
Dragged me into her studio, the lights were brighter here, girls were friendlier
Almost appeared I had walked into the Playboy mansion, hotness everywhere
The girl was Southern; she had that down home hospitality all about the place
Offered me blue cheese, red wine and grapes, falling on a sofa, legs crossed

Across from me, I found what I had come to see, a girl who had no pomposity
Was friendly not because she wanted something, if I had it to give I would
I liked watching her, the way she took her time to talk, made use of her hands
It wasn’t going to be a one off; I could have found that in the laughing girls
In the company of this girl we were back at the café ordering Frappuccino’s

Among the Middle Class, a French Couple waits for their Dime Bag

Orange Jamaican dude grizzly charm came calling often at night
House of a French couple we passed time playing miniature hoops
Resident artist, thing that became him most was the way he goofed
Guerilla boy stretched canvases inside his apartment on Murray Hill
There we were last of the Heaven cool, café kids kvetching like insects
Macho mayhem giving weight to defense, the origin of Abdul-Jabbar
How he slid and slashed gave a facial to any member of the middle class
Self-made, ego a go-go, passed out business cards to wallet heads
All because he had it in him, small time Confucius waiting on customers
In the company of Blondie and Francois laughter was heart medicine
Money passed through their living room and on walls with paintings
Most evenings we philosophized about art, me and the Graffiti Tag Thief
His collage work was his claim to fame, drank vodka martinis by rule
The Jamaican would knock three times on the door, they let him in
Do the dirty deed; a dime bag was the usual no questions asked
He waited a while; perhaps it was courtesy, home unlike any other
The street sensibility, smell of musk, rasta bound atop his ponytail
Thin as a limb, rocking that Rolling Stones tongue, red yellow tee shirt
He was America, Jamerican, black skin, wolf eyes, scar on his cheek
If silence could kill, under the light above he was razor sharp knife