Poem With a Hooker In It

a new poem

Poem With a Hooker In It 


I keep seeing everyone I’ve ever fought with 
in my dreams. Better than on the street,
says the new 23 year-old I’m sleeping with. 
The weather changes so abruptly 
(in the city and in life) 
that black is the only color able to endure it.
Like humor, it is greater than tragedy
because it contains tragedy. 
The rest of it is anyone’s: 
the day in motion, 
the actor after an audition,
the hooker eating a hot dog in the park.
O we’re so concerned 
with saying the right things!
In the right ways! 
Just so we can look good on the internet. 
No one ever wants to fuck the perfect.
Art is life rescued from time 
(as James Salter once said)
and time makes a fool of all of us.
It’s great to sleep with someone
who has no idea what they’re doing. 
The only thing to go on is passion. 
It’s why people cheat. It’s what they miss!
The slobbering shamelessness of ardor.
Even the misdirected nature of it. 
The vulnerability in knowing that you’ll lose.
That one day you’ll lose everything 
you ever got here but what else is there to do?
Death is like a human saint.
No one knows a thing about it. 
Not the president. Not the Pope.
Not even the poets.
It’s better to buy something you want
and spill all over it at some party in Brooklyn
than to have never bought it at all.