I Am a Victim of Telephone
When I lie down to sleep dream the Wishing Well it rings
"Have you a new play for the broken down theater?"
When I write in my notebook poem it rings
"Buster Keaton is under the Brooklyn bridge on Frankfurt and Pearl..."
When I unsheathe my skin extend my cock toward someone's thighs fat or
thin, boy or girl
Tingaling-"Please get him out of jail... the police are crashing down"
When I lift the soupspoon to my lips, the phone on the floor begins
purring
"Hello it's me-I'm in the park two broads from Iowa... nowhere to sleep
last night...hit'em in the mouth"
When I muse at smoke crawling over the roof outside my street window
purifying Eternity with my eye observation of gray vaporous columns in
the sky
ring ring "Hello this is Esquire be a dear and finish your political
commitment manifesto"
When I listen to radio presidents roaring on the convention floor
the phone also chimes in "Rush up to Harlem with us and see the riots"
Always the telephone linked to all the hearts of the world beating at once
crying my husband's gone my boyfriend's busted forever my poetry was
rejected
won't you come over for money and please won't you write me a piece of
bullshit
How are you dear can you come to Easthampton we're all here bathing in
the ocean we're all so lonely
and I lie back on my palette contemplating $50 phone bill, broke, drowsy,
anxious, my heart fearful of the fingers dialing, the deaths, the
singing of telephone bells
ringing at dawn ringing all afternoon ringing up midnight ringing now
forever.