Poetry by Alicia Ostriker & Andy Clausen

Alicia Ostriker
“A Walker in the City”
“Coda: Into the Street”

Andy Clausen
“Insurgency”

A Walker in the City

What you see is what you get, an inventory of garbage lying loose– the poor are always with us, but the rich lurk behind one-way glass in limousines and an entire class of attractive youth increasingly able to make money without actually working increasingly are into arts and leisure.   There’s power and there’s glamor and there’s grief, that’s what a city is for, it’s why we come, there’s violence more or less unchanged apart from a brief spike on nine-one-one.   The movies and TV are minting it. Maybe the city should publish maps showing the areas of greatest crime for the benefit of the interested tourist with special blue stars for locations of especially famous crimes, the way in London two shillings lets you follow the career of Jack the Ripper with a little booklet.   Midtown East Side, here’s where Robert Chambers strangled his pretty girlfriend during sex in Central Park.  Up by the reservoir someone from lower Harlem jumped and raped and beat for kicks, get it, a woman jogger into not death but coma. We thought it was five boys, but that was wrong.   Running between a playground and a lake, Strawberry Fields, some blackbirds in the shady sycamores mark where across the street on 72nd the Beatles fan Mark Chapman killed John Lennon. Imagine there’s no heaven, and imagine The people living in a world of peace. You have to take the A train to see where Bernie Goetz pulled out his .44 and stopped the boy he thought another mugger from sneering with his friends, from making fun. They come on with their nasty stares, unlaced, It’s so hard to be white, to be a man, when black kids don’t respect you. Here’s Howard Beach, another white on black question of turf and goodbye Yusef Hawkins.  Here’s where the woman guard in the parking garage got herself shot between bright eyes for being eyewitness to some drug dealer’s murder. Here a Bronx housewife weary of scrubbing cracked linoleum trying to clean her street of crack, lost it, and the proud Haitian in his candy store the same, as he wiped his hands on his apron, and half a dozen children caught in crossfire one steamy week in summer.  Mama, mama Ayudame, no puedo–Here’s the house where Joel Steinberg hit his little daughter for pleasure, or for anger, breaking bone after bone, yanking the soft blond curls while the mom cowered in her druggie daze. The case is special because he was a lawyer and had a lot of money, otherwise it wouldn’t count. It wouldn’t count.  And in this very courtyard of comfortable brick and stone Kitty Genovese, mother of them all, ushering in an era, screamed, in 1960, being stabbed several times in the chest by her old boyfriend, Help me! Somebody help me! None of the neghbors who heard that woman scream for an entire hour called the police, a sensible restraint, all things considered. That was the sort of thing that shocked us then.   It is important to keep the selection of crimes racially balanced and symmetrical for tourist purposes, as the mayor says. Right now everyone seems worried about black people killing white people. That’s the disturbing thought if you are white, though naturally most of the people killed are men of color.  There could be a key at the map’s bottom explaining what was what if you are here on a self-guided tour.   Maybe the sponsors of the map could be the NRA, and maybe they’d agree to have an advertisement on the back, like flower shops and banks in highschool yearbooks.   We’d need another color code to show where most non-violent crimes have taken place, Wall Street, City Hall, Police Headquarters, The Board Of Education (Bored of Ed) and Columbia University. Some people rob you with a knife some with a fountain pen some with an IBM. And a map to show the areas of crimes of omission? Color the whole map red. Color the city red. Color it ghost white for the death of compassion.

Coda: Into the Street
— For Jerry Stern

All of us may ask ourselves from time to time exactly why it is we do what we do   all of us may want to rip our own hearts out sometimes when we think about the world but   we could laugh ourselves silly or figure out how to profit by it or wonder how to love it anyway   This is what freedom and consciousness are for as if we are standing on the roof of a very tall tower   looking at the complicated view then taking the elevator going out into the street   lucky us

Alicia Ostriker is the author of 11 books of poetry, most recently No Heaven (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005, www.pitt.edu/~press), in which the two poems in this issue of Logos originally appeared. Her previous books of poetry include The Imaginary Lover (1986), The Crack in Everything (1996), The Little Space: Poems Selected and New 1968-1998, and the volcano sequence (2002). Her critical works include Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America (1986) and Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic (2000).

* * *

Insurgency

Ineffable undigested lament hovering
in dark lawless hallways Cellular anger gestating in mildewed garrots
adhering to rheumy smoked skin
tremors of varicose stairways O you’ve been elusive grandeur
peace of mind generation Yes sparkling diamonds dancing on the lake
gold shining on the Sierras
emeralds like festive ornaments
hanging in the branches And in the distance the unmistakable cries
of wounded children
of thirsty & hungry dispossessed
of those left to die   I summon and call all reserves I must try One word like one step at a time
staccato spontaneity
interrupted a dozen times a minute Jolt conscious consciousness
say away the monstrous
bring the light Samsonite optics
purgatory lip burn Breathing like a nudged accordion
squeezing wheezing from the center
of the solar system The streets have no home
the cries of the wounded All the laughter & bounty
that will never be
eaten by maggots alongside
the bombed roads Were there no me
all my working
all my so called verse
never existed
all my loves
tribulations, sins
all my desires
dead in the water Far better than this failure
of the world This is not about me It’s about us
I know you wrote & belted the anthems
marched & protested
led a different life than was planned With ringing strings & radiant keys you strived to celebrate
harmony in every good atom of your willing body
scribing verse like never before
defying the customs & tired forms of the limpid parlor
ignoring muse strangling edicts
from tenured blue blood Illuminating instead the street prison workplace
backyard river side & human gates
exonerating desire You were born in a bombshelter
born in the exaltations of the G.I. BIll You sprang into life listening to broadcasts
reading headlines New Frontier Great Society War Against Poverty
Stay the Course I Have a Dream You fought wars on foreign soil
sometimes reluctantly, willingly sometimes Fought against war Fought warfare with everything you had
and imagined you had   You came home doubting the identity and purpose of God The way we walked the talk
was going to change Each would abet this salvation
of earth by earth for earth on earth You would turn on the world
emancipating the railroaded inmates
of calloused overweened Truth You would both do your own thing
and collectivise against a war
and do what seldom had been done
You stopped a war without using weapons of war You formed Manichaen communes to grow resilient bodies
& ideas
welcoming the renegade progeny
of the Madman of Kent Arms open to Spartacus & Ghandi
Malcolm & Martin
to demand an accounting
to understand our resources at the source
to foster devotion to the Common People
to love the down trodden
to literally love one another Freedom was going to be more
than just another word
more than a word Your seven senses rhapsodied majestic pines
pungent aphrodisiac redwood, cottonwood & magnolia You embraced hemlock and climbed rhododendron himals
copped a stance for snapshots, boots on receding glaciers
dutifully reporting the raucous elevated sounds
at 18000 feet You beheld the quarried faces
the landslide jowls
the gouged & scourged breasts
desultory forlorn acres of two story piled logged Alaska
bound for Japan
the rotten cabbage-egg spumes of the pulp mills
of Springfield & Missoula
the concertina wires silently screaming
Coxsackie, Otisville, Woodbourne You were blown out when the oxygen devouring flames
\of the refineries spelled out SATAN MOLOCH
TERROR DISEASE APOCALYPSE
in the choking salmon charcoal night miasma
clinging to the windshield
on the doldrum drive to lower east
Paradise Lost & the land of Nod You got off the couch
& learned hands-on carpentry & plumbing
dancing on red iron high in the sky
the Gotham-Baghdad by the Bay-Oklahoma City Sky You punked the rods in the thick air valley
Santa Clara-San Fernando-Phoenix-Hudson-Williamette Shouldered the hod, humped the wheelbarrow Kept the rig barreling in the white line fever
cross country wail bar night You waited on tables with weary dogs
and conjured smiles, a tip dependent thespian You set tables, bussed & cleaned tables
polished & fabricated tables
your own and those of the rich
if you were lucky If you were lucky had kids
went into the family business Wanting to ease the trials of the road
for the kids, the road you no longer travel
deteriorating detonating under their innocent
wheels
Remember when you made your own music
worked out your own songs & prayers
your own steps & mudras
your own instruments Anything was a drum Any twang okay Every street had a story a tune Every country road gave birth to jigs & blues
Pilgrim & artist
pulsating genuine lived in living rooms
utilizing bedrooms at all hours
raunchy rambling garages and old time stoops
of lowdown hoods with cross blown
mouth harps, crimson eyes at half mast
messaline meadows and brown bag corners
ideoblastic parks of cities & cherished wilderness
midnight cemeteries
ancient barns gypsy fiddle lofts hustling coffee houses
saxophone woodsheds swimming in clear light
atop godlike mountains down by the everyday water side Everyone was a celebrity
all was genius   I know the jobs you had were not easy
more than once humiliating dreamless
underpaid unpaid health destroying boring
as all get out You learned mammon has reality
on its side at its side Nothing has a sharper blade Nothing has colder penetration Nothing has the concentrated will to ruin
like legal tender Even history & scripture & medicine must consult the mighty
dollar (Or is it Euro?) before they write themselves   You decided to aim your poetic flare at merchandise
advertising promoting sometimes the best
sometimes what you knew was bunk
toting grief & guilt a million miles
purchased at Walmart You battled forest fires, battled erosion
battled environmental stupidity
and grew old growing asparagus & beans
& catnip with home grown fertilizer
muttering, “Everyone loses…and it doesn’t matter.” You opened hip rare vision & user friendly bookstores
the brightest came to browse and carouse
Wagner & Dylan in the air You had eclectric transrational record shops
and sold posters of Anarchy & rent short artists
and went to work for Barnes & Nobles
Bertelsman Seagrams & Rupert Murdoch You haven’t yet taken off your clothes
and walked thru midtown a saddhu You haven’t yet gone for the rope
the razor the pistol the pill bottle
or 10th story window You Here
hand fashioning jewelry, scented candles & mirrors
doing massage color gem & aroma therapy       Late at night in the 7-11, Quick Stop, U-Totem,
down on Cumberland Farm At dawn cleaning houses & toilets too
delivering papers
hanging drapes in blocks of condos you could
never afford or want to live in You voyaged to foreign lands went native
started sending exotic culture home You could no longer afford America You toiled for disrespectful pitiable wage
before and after parole They wanted you to work scared
& act like you loved it You were told to consider yourself fortunate   Everything you collected was consumed in the fire Everything you knew washed away in the flood Like the sword of Bhairav
amputating ignorance Like Jesus put a sword between parent & child A sword dissolving with the torn pages
of composting calendars
and grandchildren pointing at pages
yet to be And the old anthems seemed only old Even though you did puberty in the projects You became the beaucoup gardener of wanton
celestial flowers, ghetto flowers, neon bouquets
immersing into the Waters of Life
precious everyday Water You were born again
yet suffered the afflictions
of begrudged repetitive motion
sitting on the unjustifiable boils of Job
yet rode his horses when they jumped
Nobodaddy’s fence– abandoning a deity
who’d gamble away your loved ones You guided the inhibited to the primordial pools
sailing the pre-Adamic seas laden
with contraband jazz & duty free Jai Shambeau Days melding into endless novenas
of house car medical payments Your Lord’s first name was Land You dug the sod with back & plow & pen
aiming, clicking the carnal camera
with excess joy inevitably
leaking sanguine droplets
of gleeful sweat You could still dream You could still grin You had a mother guru
a father guru
a child guru–a consort guru You made love with your guru You took the mountain side for your guru You sought refuge on Tamalpais the Flat Irons
Denali Overlook Tremper Fuji Kilanmajaro
El Capitan Sagarmartha Nose Mountain You sought primitive therapy in atavistic pubs
the outlaw rock and roll of your sexual awakenings
& came that close to biting the dust
in a bath tub of ice cubes
with neglect came denial, false romance & viral grief You are still here You can get off the floor
on one knee, get the other foot on the ground
Rise Up O Uprising O Insurgency Forget your solipsistic woes Let your voice be heard! Without Bombs! Let it be heard!
Are you here only to witness
every aspiration
every shred of decency under siege & corrosion? The sustainability of mothers of earth of the stars & beyond
all the eye can & can not see, desecrated? What it is to have choice, persecuted & condemned? Every scintilla the poor have to protect themselves
against the whims, follies, and privilege
of the rich being snuffed? Every religion worshipping the One God
invoked to justify killing human beings?   Every industry governed by Mammon Urizen Moloch Dog Eat Dog? America who gave the world the transcendence
of the blues rock and roll, be-bop  hip hop the wobblies
the Summer of Love, Harlem renaissance & the Beats America the beautiful reviled by the world
cast as insatiable bully & glutton
has become what she hated A land of Orwellian distortion
of lethal deceit
of treacherous anti-sense Freedom is not free ( 3 times) Heroism is comparing bombing missions
to video games & the 4th of July Whole families explode and burn
accidently on purpose The duty bound the poverty coerced
compare drive-bys in Iraq
to drive-bys in Brooklyn Patriotism is denying those who disagree
free speech Justice is compiling dossiers
on what folk read think contribute to Justice is retribution & revenge Allah, Jesus Christ, Jehovah the names invoked
before committing mass murder The Rapture exonerates lying
to vast populations Professing fear of God absolves all bads Love is anything very expensive Love is chocolates, a stunning gown, a limo & liposuction
a new face, a rare breed of mammal Love is a package dancing on a gilded stage
it’s applause, O show me the love
it’s a whoop for the home team
four letters on a page
a slo mo zoom in a manicured meadow Democracy is not Whitman’s, not Thoreau’s
John Stuart Mill’s
not Martin Luther King’s
nor Eugene Debs democracy
not Thomas Paine
not Buffy St. Marie
not Paul Robeson, Rosa Luxemburg Democracy is a twisted depraved metaphor
for doing business America is a code word for get
the best of any transaction You were privy to the Way is not the Way You might have read Corso’s The American Way You know what I know You’ve been out sourced You’re paycheck to paycheck
to other kind of check And everything is rising but wages   Temperatures are rising Tempers are rising Rent and Real Estate rising Threats are rising Torture is rising The water is rising The sewage & effluvia
of carnivorous slag is rising It is permeating the fabric Injuries against nature float
like greasy seaweed The pig-out of conquerors
has upmerged from shallow internment
like chemical zombies But wages are not rising   What else can rise? What can come out of the charnel sod?   You have religious practice
your rituals your prayers your solitude
facing the sun the moon east & west
in all six directions
fingers on beads emptying & filling your mind
from little round pillow to cushioned pew
and your legs behind your neck
and counted everyone of the 108,000
walked the last mile on your knees! You have access to more information than dreamnt
possible a generation ago You can parse the gaits of rare animals & insects
machines, gold, winds & rain
that will never touch your face
at your fingertips Everyday you affirm faith the path to unwind
will not lead you nowhere
not marooned in your cenotaph residency
in hyperparanoid domains of ravenous
matter consuming ghosts You have your departed friends & lovers
& their indispensable counsel for ephemeral comfort
& funereal resolve You deplore the destruction of meaning in words
of meaning of the old forests
old buildings & ways
sitting in a thousand rooms of agreement
& encouragement sans answer
without key no window
outside the war continues You laud easy laughter
intoning your motto your rune
“It’s all good.”
like a mortal lock paradigm
“It’s all good.”
outside they are teaching you are the enemy What else will rise? What else can emerge
from this charnel ground?   You who hold the driving belts
to the machines of the world
in your maybe battered, maybe contorted,
maybe barely able, maybe atrophied,
maybe reborn one thing’s for certain hands Call out! O Common Sense Insurgency Organize! Let your voice be heard! Organize! Stop the war, let the chimes of freedom flash again
Be born again! Voice it! O Land of Beulah how can you be measured
by numbers? O Imagination how can your value plummet so? Politically as one man I ask you how has
smallbusiness fared under the Republicans
Nixon Reagan The Bushes
and liberal republicans like Clinton? Ask Office Depot, Barnes & Nobles Ask the radio waves, ask Clear Channel How has education fared? Ask the millions who only know a false history
or no history at all We had one president who told us to conserve nature’s yield
and withdrew finance to vicious tyrants One president who did not bomb
& we saw what & where it got him As long as the plastic presented consumer good life
in action & the supermarkets were well stocked
& the oil flowed into fuel
you did what you had to do
you didn’t have to think about it
whatever it was Insurgency quit working for the war don’t supply the war
don’t fight in, don’t let your children fight in                         this profiteering inexcusable bogus war
exorcise the war from your heart
this war that is all wars
this is the war fought on every plane & dimension                         in every aspect & fiber
this is the war against human love                         Human Love Honest work for honest pay, cry out wail howl organize! Out of the ashes & flotsam, out of its coffin It is Joe Hillstrom, Emma Goldman, W.B. Dubois
Vachel Lindsay, Emmit Grogan & Abbie Hoffman Let your voice be heard
in every day in every way O insurgents, O peace mongers
don’t mourn, organize! O artists magnanimously the planet turns
from the desperate day Your hand has fashioned represented & glorified
unrelenting beauty we were born to                          are entitled to But we suffer addicted collusion intent on using this
awesome fecundity to make capital Capital that begets more capital Money not even what money buys just money Money inflicting pain A society that fears its neighbors
whose gold is do unto others before they do unto you A society that fears race & language
sex & no sex & poverty’s karma A nation that jetsams its heritage
when push comes to shove
which is its heritage & its sex A society that conceives to make reparations
to the descendants of the ethnically cleansed
& robbed original inhabitants of These States
with long shot pipe dreams
of the poor & working losing
their retirements at the gaming tables A society that conceives to make no reparations
at all to the descendants of slave labor
survivors of and in defacto apartheid You saw streams of fish & revivifying drink
rendered carcinogenic & wept iodine You saw rain seducing mysteries clear cut
& waves of stumped Mars like terrain Orange Walnut Apricot groves bulldozed
into disposable housing Beaches petrofried Acres of abandoned rust Mountain ranges of plastic plastic plastic Mountain tombs of radioactive waste buried alive Winds of depleted uranium & birth defects
dirging Hills of crank & pills & lost teeth
dirging You saw it from the portholes
of your rides You felt it on a train to Secunderbad
to Budapest to Eugene Oregon A bus to Cleveland Ohio
on the turnpike, O Elizabeth!
boarding a plane in Walla Walla
O Homeland Security pork! On the 7 train Insurgency Uproar boiling in its bloody cauldron O insurgents for birthright, laugh loud & proud
dance like your life depends on it– it does
drink go ahead Jesus & Haffiz are with you
smoke it’s your right, your religion
watch your ashes, notice your anger
outspoken exuberant generous forgive educate protest
wail shout out Let it be heard You can stop the war You the woman & you the man
can stop the war Who else can stop it?   Renounce virtual reality’s design on 24/7
not enough virtue
not enough reality
not enough time Tear yourself from the screen
go out the door Insurgency without bombs & poison
renounce the media of big boy control culture
hypnotizing cheapening us O uprising dawn new Unions, Revolutions
& outlaw outside markets
bring it to the numbered streets                         & sylvan roads, the sacred airways O non-violent heart of Jesus & Buddha
reach & touch
overwhelm these malignant cowardly                         heartless vibes Whether it be Velvet Orange Rainbow Pink Black Blue
Red or Green
by any means possible This deadly fog must lift   Arise Tom Paine, John Peter Altgeld, John Reed
Jane Adams Helen Adam John Coltrane Etheridge
Knight Jack Kerouac Allen Ginsberg Black Buffalo
Woman Crazy Horse Langston Hughes rise Uprising Debs and Jack London Caesar Chavez Abelardo
Delgado Frida & Diego Billie Holliday Bessie Smith
Big Bill Haywood Joe Hill Phil Ochs Malcolm X
Joaquin Murrieta Chief Joseph rise Woody Guthrie Leadbelly Cisco Houston Harriet Tubman
Charlie Chaplin Billy Burroughs Jr. Enid Dame
David Lerner, Judy Bari, Pedro Pietri arise Maestro Gregory Corso come with on the point straight shot
eloquent prophetics “Know that there are millions of Americans seeking America…know that even with all those eye-expanding chemicals–only more of what is not there do they see” Isabel Eberhardt show us the New Frontier
& if need be disguise & attitude Sitting Bull show us the route
the method the rudiments How will we fight the most pervasive
destructive Empire the Earth has known? I reach out to all the saints & sinners
you who are named & you billions with no names in books
with no glory but what was
in front of you I call to all laborers, the misrecognized
the great heros the mothers of us all
the hammer the hoe the rags & sponges
the lactating breasts & fore arms
the steel wool knuckles & eyes aged
beyond this life– Cold mouth
declaiming the immortal lines in mortal faces
the mop & broom, the conveyor belt
the choker and skid, the will killing pick
the ovens the ladders and swinging scaffolds
the tie wire and grill and telephone and trowel   I call to guide wire and caulked boots
the steel toes, the dollie, the ho dad, the lumpers
the victims of misogyny, the foster families
broken furniture families
the jack hammer, the jack of all, the fruit picker
pearl diver the hacks the seamstress the drill press
the death bed comforter, the lesson planners
and underpaid menders of atrocities To all who did the dirty work To all who made us clean To all who were sold short overused
& deceived yet found time to live I call on you now Arise Help Us, guide us We will make a future together
fit for you to live again You shall rise! You are not dead O Insurgents O Pioneers Let it be heard! Stop this everywhere everything
contamination Stop this war, Organize, rebirth Come together
& you’ll find a way
to stop this war

Andy Clausen is the author of ten books of poetry, including Without Doubt (Zeitgeist Press, 1991, introduction by Allen Ginsberg), 40th Century Man: Selected Verse 1996-1966 (Autonomedia, 1997), and Songs of Bo Baba (Shivastan Publishing, 2004). A coeditor of Poems for the Nation (Seven Stories Press, 2000), Clausen is a construction worker and teaches poetry in New York public schools.