Clockwork Edie

Clockwork Edie

Walking floors of Lower East Side gallery I’m not phony not some one you wanna pick a bone with –

I’m here on luck of a dime – hippie chick got me information – she had been photographed by legend

Black and white posted down the hall right side of a wall – didn’t have it in me to pay attention but I noticed how beautiful she looked - crazy, calm and twisted

Never gave a fuck about gallery openings – if it was literati I wanted I would have been born into Warhol’s factory

White lights swallow me suck all energy out my body – but this is the plan to drink, mingle and pretend

Tom Waits had a name for people like this – he called them rain dogs – at least that’s what I thought he meant walking a dog in the rain muttered and bitter bringing it home smelling of mud

So I wait under these screaming lights popping every vein within me – looking over at works of art thinking this is East Village art – not Man Rays on West 57th Street

People here carry with them weight – it’s all in what they wear from smiles on their faces they carry with them weight – it wears on me

As if I can’t contain any of this - the outside world inside – watching as they go by always laughing drink in hand looking like paintings on the wall

So I stand in front of photograph one with the girl I know – memories of our time spent come back to me – it circles fills the room

I draw attention of blonde woman – she knows the photographer – we fall into conversation – somehow she fits in with the crowd

Our discussion drives us from one work of art to another talking – behind us is man I later learn is her husband

I come from Buddha – fell in lust with married Buddhist woman looking to rid herself of her husband

Got so bad she and I would be making love – I heard apartment door open and close his footsteps making it to his room

Following morning I’d get a blow from her while he was chanting in living room – I come from Buddha

If this is karma it followed me around – I fell into love triangles husbands and wives girlfriends and boyfriends even lovers

If love would have it I became friend to this blonde woman –when her husband was away at work I came over for coffee

He trusted me – something from my past told me all along I was made for women – I sat with mother while daddy got jealous

She slept with him – not me – you could say I warmed her up – a guy once told me talking to him was like making love

Call it domestic housewife mother making art – her studio was space corner of apartment in building Allen Gingsberg once lived

If love would have it she would always make me feel at home – up that winding hall were canvases and paintings - light so dim brought me in

Heart so warm and beautiful mother to me I thought – how she spent time cooking for me while we sat drinking coffee smoking cigarettes

Don’t fuck with Brooklyn – you couldn’t – raised two kids on her own made a living hustling – call me art pimp and I’ll sell you an art bimbo

Clockwork Edie that blonde hair up in a curl – but who could step to this –

It was done this way – back in the 50’s it was done this way – we had Marilyn Monroe - we had Jackson Pollack

Damn if ever I call you Jackson but my dear you are Marilyn - you are Pollack – whatever knives you keep in your garden

History has a place for you – walk undaunted into the futures rummaged with their virtual sons and daughters

Make music of your heart’s spirals and colors pastel orange blue imagination

Skin of skin mold me – piece of wood you cut into – damaged I arrive at doorstep another fresh Monday morning

What secrets do we keep – tall tales about driving blind on sunny afternoons into a world greater than ours

You discovered Italy – Georgia O’Keefe in New Mexico – You belong –

Away from the Westside where wind blows hair from your dark glasses oh Clockwork Edie –

Turn back time – walk the gang in with tank tops blades in your pockets –

Hold your own where boys made noise – you have been winning this war

Shelves of books wisdom and poetry – we break bread each time we meet

How do we make peace with the young banging at our doors – nearly lost a life I depended on you

Should I hold your hand – you have a world you know – but how I miss you now longing to sit becoming ourselves

Where do we keep this longing – it would only be as if time stood still - we had aged among rocks – papers - scissors