All the porn houses are closed down now.
Projectors point towards the gray screen
All shows canceled.
all young women who loved
old and lonely men are gone now
with retirement plans
and full benefits
They no longer know the
the neon signs
That read
private booths in back.
There are no award shows
for the naked theater
only a pass to the Tombs.

2

All the ideas have become too ordinary
and accepted.
Artists now live above the streets
no longer willing to dance
through the metal doors of the psych wards
where angelic ideas are born
in
sanitized halls.
. “you don’t have to show me where to go
I know the routine. I’ll be here after you’re gone.”
The academies have castrated the word
turning all meaning into a blue mist of
barren winter on the written page.
Its all advertising now.
dead images
of beauties
final curse.

3
The brown snow of the east continues to white wash the crime
which the city was built on.
The Wall Street deals.
The back room deals
The race track deals
The under the table deals
The off shore deals.
Turning housing court into
a collection agency
where judges do the work
of filing clerks.
The rail yard deals
which locks out the
working class
the next great payoff
to those who sold the city
and bought it again.

4
Do you know the stories that sit on the curb
in garbage bags
from rooms with eviction notices on
SRO doors
Working class doors
Coffee house doors
tenement doors.
and the doors of ghosts
which no longer shatters under the pressure
of putting on a good performance
in a booth
on the other side of the glass.
Now they
perform
under the Hudson moon
just beyond the reach
of old men
who forever will
feed 10 dollar bills into slots
and sit on plastic chairs
waiting for the show
which never begins.

5
Only the truly wealthy can afford
to forget
what has already been buried
In Saint Luke’s
On Potter’s field
Or Arthur Kill land fill of Staten Island.
6
New York City
once the kingdom of misfits
now sits like an empty store front
with for rent signs pressed against the glass.
or the last great porn star
presenting herself to those lined up
on the other side of the camera