Metrospelunking Poem by gershon hepner

In the tunnels some debunk
brave New Yorkers who spelunk
into subways, where they funnel
through a station and a tunnel,
like spelunking spunky seed,
paying very little heed
to competing sperms, and rush
through passages where there’s no hush,
but constant noise that’s louder than
a women’s climax with a man,
or woman—all depends! Unbroken
spirits as they swipe their token,
swerving past the gross graffiti,
to most as alien as E.T.,
of them therefore less receptive
than of sperms a contraceptive,
crowding train cars that will carry
passengers allowed to marry
people of opposing genders,
and, per Bill of Rights amenders,
homogenous ones, not hetero.
Spelunking in the subway metro
you’ll meet, while slicing the Big Apple,
people who disdain the Papal
contempt for human rights, more firm
about the rights he gives to sperm––
no women ever has been pricked
by him, the sixteenth Benedict––
than to the people who commute
in subways, and don’t give a hoot
about the Pope, though he’s no punk.
They don’t cave in when they spelunk,
because their major consummation
comes when they reach their destination,
and taking leave without a token,
they cool off just like lovers, smokin’,
uncarin’ whether Jesus saves,
while they ride safely in their caves,
emerging from the depths as safe
as bathers in a bathyscaphe,
avoiding trash and all the junk,
full of spunk as they spelunk.


Inspired by an article on subway art by Randy Kennedy (“Attention Passengers! To Your Right, This Trip Is About to Become Trippy, ” NYT, January 1,2009) :
The New York City subway is full of more or less secret works of art, salvos of illicit shape and color that you can appreciate only if your Lexington Avenue train slows near an abandoned platform or you make a life-threatening spelunk into the tunnels and stumble across scraps of manic autobiographical wall writings painted by a semi-mythical graffiti artist known as Revs. But for many years, toward the end of a Brooklyn tunnel that leads onto the Manhattan Bridge, an unusual piece of urban art — part painting, part movie, part conceptual experiment — has been kept a secret only through neglect, layers of graffiti tags and fluorescent lights that were broken or turned off.


1/1/09