Steve Dalachinsky

reader friendly


sipped again
i thought here for love or
money

                 i have
                                 plenty
                                                 of
                                                            both

                 breath
                                 (stupid me dreaming sugary)
                                 nouns & prepositions

     on fire
                         in a strange city of tight pants
tight pants on a young belly                                                 holes
           how strange the young belly show thru deep rosed plaster (ed)

                                 money doesn't know where it goes

it goes into pockets
                                 put on the found cups & left


steve dalachinsky nyc 11/16/05 @ poetry project ted berrigan collected poems




time squared


the woman in white
i saw her today on broadway
across from the bertelsmann blding
       a mega virgin
w/e-mail as well as voice
         mail
  a lone male
     for a moment
           then the herd returns
                 still alone writing this on corner
                                 of 46th
   heard of planet Hollywood
         tho never been
         the hershey store smelling
like what else -         chocolate
         colony records lp section closed
                                 me the point of a compass
           passerbys sweeping by
                         like all an points bulletin
                                 this side of the street
   she says this side         she says
i thought it was on this side of the street
     she says you guys it's on this side

wherever i stand i am always in someone's way
                                 - a domestic wind
                         blowing thru my newly found
                                                 oversized overcoat.


steve dalachinsky nyc written in times square 11/17/05




dark things



the furniture that holds dark things -
            "hear the song i didn't
                         sing to you"
far & unavailable
                 the lost opportunity of whatever
         you were
                         within the round
                                 a roun ____d

i am a writer
    therefore i pick up a pen i find
on the street
    the rain goes from thick to thin
    the last leaves of the ginkgo
spread themselves across the concrete
                         like a wet blanket
                         the empty benches wait out this storm
                                         dark things on an even darker night.


steve dalachinsky nyc pt 1 2005 date unknown pt 2 11/16/05





margaret shows henry the met (cartoon1)


you shouldn't have given me such a gift - h says

we are here
to find ourselves
know our selves - m says

which is better - h asks
the former or the
latter?

virtue & sweet death - says m

& ectoplasm? h mutters smiling his child smile

that too m assures him

there are horrors
in bklyn
in queens
awkward moments
that only a gift giver can solve

fra angelico playing second fiddle
van gogh showing his muscles
exiled dreamers
good gifts
bad gifts & sweet
death

when i'm alone h says
i have no one to talk to but myself
or the occasional stranger
when with you
we argue over the time & space
in which one speaks
exists

it depends always on the needs of the "Other"
- m gently tells him
speaking actually about her own selfish needs

foreign languages
are our emotions she softly kicks him
in the thigh
like she would a pestering dog
mumbling remembering memling @ the frick
earlier that afternoon

centuries of portraits
hard lines
cameos
drawings
the pomposity & religiosity of
prague implanted w/stone
fragments
hands
images
space

we fight for space -m says quietly
we viciously fight but the windmills never topple
will never topple
violent pieces of scrap voices
topple
topples
a soul(s) donor
a short list of color

the thought only counts if you mean it m tells h

h wanders off in his mind
his sad eyes fixed hazily on the speck of light
darting out of an imaginary
landscape.





memling @ the frick


memling's subjects always
placed their hands at the edge of the canvas
like a frame w/in a frame
a brown balcony
sometimes one atop the other
sometimes holding a scrap of paper
that seemed out of proportion w/the rest of the canvas
&
once what looked like a folded black fan

ghosts
brows
style wit
postures
without shape or plan
relaxed
as long as memory continues
to relax
reshape
it self.


dalachinsky nyc @ frick & @ met 12/07/05 & @ home 12/08/05





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