The Right Madness On East 10th Street - With Apologies To R. Hugo, Hopkins, Dante, Pound, J.S. Bach, & J. Wright - But Not To Manhattan Poem by Warren Falcon

'I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
and gaze at the moon till I lose my senses'
- lines from the song 'Don't Fence Me In'

'But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? ' - Gerard Manley Hopkins

'One o'clock. Two o'clock. Three o'clock rock.
Four o'clock. Five o'clock. Six o'clock rock.' - Bill Haley and the Comets

'Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me...for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.' - from The Book of Lamentations

'Toot, toot, lovers.' - Richard Hugo


Here is the right madness on East 10th Street for now is
the always-unpredictable-but-don't-complain-when-it-happens return of the City's Jackhammers and their Hell's Hammerers.

Thus there is no assisting the, my, murderous shadow wanting to hurl things from the window onto tormentors below but

not, I'll not, furious tossings, but dared, not rain old boots onto street, nor heaviest books, even empty pill bottles, not one valium left for me, down hurl upon urbanity most cruel,

but doffed, here I compose some ill-mannered lament, nay, a Comedia from the forgotten unsung rungs dear Dante spake not of at all in his long scrawl crawl down and up

(I have five flights of stairs upon which to practice the daily hells graded) but

with cantata, Bach, rock, woe-man hath a good stone to grind each curse well and fitting that sand might cover their yellowed faces

with cantata hath woe-man
interrupted paradise within his cursed hall with jack with

hammers day stammers street stutters where those undone many so many widely cross Lethe Street shattered

though golden beneath the falling ginkgoes cloven upon rails the tenement vales astonished with grief of leaf fall, the thundered car sirens, relentless, howling



'Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom' - James Wright