Personal poem

Now when I walk around at lunchtimeI have only two charms in my pocketan old Roman coin Mike Kanemitsu  gave meand a bolt-head that broke off a packing casewhen I was in Madrid the others neverbrought me too much luck though they didhelp keep me in New York against coercionbut now I’m happy for a time and interestedI walk through the luminous humiditypassing the House of Seagram with its wetand its loungers and the construction tothe left that closed the sidewalk ifI ever get to be a construction workerI’d like to have a silver hat pleaseand get to Moriarty’s where I wait forLeRoi  and hear who wants to be a mover andshaker the last five years my batting averageis .016 that’s that, and LeRoi comes inand tells me Miles Davis was clubbed 12times last night outside BIRDLAND by a copa lady asks us for a nickel for a terribledisease but we don’t give her one wedon’t like terrible diseases, thenwe go eat some fish and some ale it’scool but crowded we don’t like Lionel Trillingwe decide, we like Don Allen we don’t likeHenry James so much we like Herman Melvillewe don’t want to be in the poets’ walk inSan Francisco even we just want to be richand walk on girders in our silver hatsI wonder if one person out of the 8,ooo,ooo isthinking of me as I shake hands with LeRoiand buy a strap for my wristwatch and goback to work happy at the thought possibly so

Matsumi Kanemitsu: American painter.Amiri Baraka, born LeRoi Jones: American poet, writer and political activist associated to the Beat movement