Like a Bowery bum when he finally understands
the bottle is empty and there's nothing left


Fred W. McDarrah, Franz Kline in His 14th Street Studio, April 7, 1961

Doll Poem
by Gregory Corso

A favorite doll
knows the pain of a child's farewell.
Buried in the crib in the attic it dies forever.
Candy-colors fade
long pants lead us elsewhere
and a child's hands are getting hair.
Chewed-pencils, clips, pennies in our pockets
where are they?
The child's body is longer
long as the earth
everybody walks on him, some on wheelchairs,
long mad envious journey.
Soda and fig-newtons will erupt from the mouth.


Mission Tire Factory, 1969
-- by Gary Soto

All through lunch Peter pinched at his crotch,
And Jesús talked about his tattoos,
And I let the flies crawl my arm, undisturbed,
Thinking it was wrong, a buck sixty five,
The wash of rubber in our lungs,
The oven we would enter, squinting
---because earlier in the day Manny fell
From his machine, and when we carried him
To the workshed (blood from
Under his shirt, in his pants)
All he could manage, in an ignorance
Outdone only by pain, was to take three dollars
From his wallet, and say:
"Buy some sandwiches. You guys saved my life."


69
-- by Philip Schultz

This morning I'm tired of the same newspapers and arguments.
I'm tired of sticking the same legs into the same pants,
the same hands poking out of the same sleeves, going west
and then east, heating up the same tea, watching the same sun
rise over the same horizon, the same trees shedding the same leaves.
Tired of climbing the same stairs to look out the same window
at the same street, tired of shaking the same hands, opening and
closing the same doors, dreaming the same dreams, saying hello
good morning happy birthday I'm so sorry please forgive me.