There's a lot of Douglas Collura on this page.  Two poems, one brand new.  An mp3 of Doug performing Doubters in the Empire (right-click to download, 3.7mb), as recorded on his new CD, The Dare of the Quick World.  Ordering info for the CD, too.

All that's missing is a schedule of upcoming performances.  But we're working on that!

 

I Can Walk There from Here


I can walk there from here, D’Agostinos for the basics:
Poland Spring Trop Crispies raisins.
Weave through close aisles of unloaded u-boats.
Checkout girl with black hair, rows tight to scalp.
She wears a numbness far beyond resignation.
Her hand transfers change; across the commerce, we touch.
Without affection or desire there’s nothing to tip us off
we’re still breathing.
Harsh how such transactions
shut down her beauty while she’s young.

I can walk there from here, Drug Town pharmacy for the discounts,
thinking, what’s it called again that I dab into my hair for body?
When am I going to disguise this gray attacking my temples?
Lots of age regressing products every aisle.
Lots of flawless faces on boxes, their eyes follow me.
How unfortunate to be human, the only animal that regrets
his own flesh long before it turns him
out of his own life.

Union Square Multiplex, I can walk there from here,
retractable armrests, overpriced 9 soon to be $10 tickets.
Watching Shakespeare in Love, finding it very sexy
until this couple a row in front of me begins to hump.
I shield my eyes to concentrate on the screen. 
The girl squirms atop her boyfriend, vamping his neck.
I give in, watch them, a betrayal of Shakespeare I guess,
but the bard isn’t mounting a performance atop his lover
six feet in front of my eyes.

I can walk there from here, past the lost perversion circus
of the Variety Theater.
Past the church courtyard of brick swirling into tree wells.
Past the corner St. Marks and 1st.
The dealer smacks the squatter girl.
She comes up with mace, nails his eyes,
chases another into traffic,
a third stands in the intersection,
the paramedics bandage the hole in his calf.

I can walk to Sara Roosevelt Park from here,
different from the days when flanked with hookers.
The two Denises.  The one told her parents
she studied to be a pharmacist.
The other nicknamed Champagne
reported to her parents nothing. 
Both six feet in heels, front seat contortionists,
performed their work without apparent resentment.
I would ask them now, where did you put your long legs?
I would ask them now, did your spirits erode
making every cock feel like a hero?
But they’re both dead.
Harsh how such transactions
shut down their beauty
while they were young.

To there, near the hoops in Sara Roosevelt Park,
outside the fence, just off the curb,
I can walk from all the way over here
and step into their shadows.

 

 

The Poet Proposes to Change
His for-Shit Attitude


I’ve decided to get happy about the whole damn thing, happy about it.
From the politicos and developers who molest public space,
to the DNA-milkshakes frankenstein’d into our food chain,
to the proponents of wilderness-no-more who argue
that if the violated body lacks a mouth to scream, it isn’t rape.
I’ve decided to get happy about the whole sick landscape.

I’ve decided no more Mr. Moody, Mr. Cranky,
rather vim-vig, zip-zappy, Fred Astaire on a little ball of crackie,
give the girls a winkie, hunch in the doorway, take a little tinkie,
relieved and happy about it.

I’ll buy a cap, wear it the wrong way back,
waist of my pants around my kneecaps,
that’s what the kings of the street scene do,
they’re happy I tell myself, why not you?

I’ve decided that on the rare day I find such youth unattainable, I’ll itemize:
stiff neck, bum heel, knee gone, all that collapses
crumbles first, pleased as punch about it.

Read a poem by Allen G., spot someone sexy, go weak in the knee, toss out the TV, burn Trump in effigy,
get happy about it.

Watch the mayor try to drape a jock strap over the Empire State
due to its phallic silhouette, get happy about it.

Do the old in-and-out slow, the old in-and-out fast,
swirl-pump to the left, swirl-pump to the right,
edge of the bed, or behind with someone uptight, arf, arf, get happy about it.

You don’t have to feel a sickie every time your stick grows sticky,
no matter what the public condemns as icky,
you can get happy about it.

You can hump the rump of a leather trussed-up chump
or sink into the pink of a whore with a wicked stink,
you can squat naked on a stone like Rodin’s thinker and almost think,
you can get happy about it.

You can watch the whole world sink out of view,
imagining the wretched end concerns everyone but you,
never questioning whether such a belief holds true,
as you go down
happy about it.


© 2000, 2001 Douglas Collura