ALAN HARAWITZ

PINK PONY

“Hello, Cornelia, how the hell are ya?”
   —Ramon Matos, Pink Pony regular

Poetry night at the Pink Pony:
Jackie relaxed but wound,
her little egg timer deceptively quiet on the table.

The line streams up the stairs,
a motley bunch of poets and hangers-on
waiting for their chance to be recognized,
appreciated, glorified, loved,
perhaps vilified or even deified.

Each Friday took on a life of its own—
straight, gay, young, old.

Just get up and read.
Cornelia Street was nothing if not democratic.
The egg timer played no favorites
and Jackie’s silver tongue
could dance like a butterfly or sting like a bee.

The regulars were all there:
Max and Sebastian, Big Mike and the rest.

Suzanne behind the bar at your service
with a smile and a brew guaranteed to relax
even the tightest tight-ass in Greenwich Village.

So line up and fill that little glass with dollar bills.
Poets aren’t the only ones starving in this world.

The sign-up sheet finally fills,
the clock ticks just past six

and the lady in black, like a female Johnny Cash,
strides to the mike, wraps a hand around
as if it were a horse she once knew
and growls in gravel:

“Welcome to the Pink Pony,
the best damn reading in the city of New York!”

Alan Harawitz is a Brooklynite by birth; lives in New York for nine months, three in Maine. His work has appeared in many magazines including most recently Pivot, Prairie Winds, Raintown Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Connecticut River Review, Pacific Coast Journal, Porcupine Literary Arts, and Red Owl (out in March 2002) among others.

Needless to say, Alan is a diehard much-beloved regular at the Pink Pony West poetry reading series!