Gregory Corso’s Suit
for Stephen Murray
“Man, look at my suit,”
says Gregory to the crowd.
The crowd applauds the whiteness,
the poet in his drapery of romance,
a poor clown in an expensive suit,
dancing for the biography’s page.
A fortnight later, ruined.
Blood stained, vomit splashed.
Ah, poor suit, paid for with books of poetry,
you tattered and debauched thing,
slept in, creased, greyed in tone.
“Man, look at my suit,”
says Gregory to the crowd,
before grabbing a poetess’s ass
and being shoved into a filthy canal.
“Man, look at my suit,”
says Gregory to the crowd,
looking every inch the grand poet clown
and prince of the tombs that he was.
Unkempt and greasy, starving, and pissed
in a handmade Italian suit that was as beautiful as a slug.
Kabir Says
I was born to weave, so I weave,
I speak not on scripture, I sing,
no Muhammad plucks my strings,
no Rama, nor Ganesh plays my flute,
only the beloved's melody is here.
I live with the butchers, traders,
down in the bad end of town,
I sit it the market place, I kiss
the dirt, not a crown.
I don't bother with books, I write
nothing down, I just sit here and laugh,
when they ask about God. My eyes are
enough, no point talking to those who
can’t see their self in the mirror.
When the Hindus and Muslims come
for my body, it won't be found,
only jasmines will be there, and still
they will split them and hoard them
instead of sharing them around.
Melville In The Mist
For 19 years
& $4 a day,
he worked as the only honest man in the New York
customs house, writing unread poetry.
His reputation as a writer sunk by the whale,
his two sons in the grave,
depression, drink and madness,
assailed his spirit, and still he wrote on.
Pulled through by his wife
and dead relatives’ money, he had a quiet death,
left a trunk filled with books and his name and rep
rose up from the depths to claim the critics’ brains.
I turn to the mirror now and look: is that Melville's
mystic thinker’s whale’s mist blowing from my crown?