1 New Poem

Party Blocs

We were there in the last shivers
of incandescence: chip-paint hallways
past pulses of tin can sound
rolling through brickwork backs,
out across a forbearing
season’s snow-slush concrete.

We were there when things went
split-separate, turned all around:
I didn’t talk of smoke signals
and floating sinktops in the
beer can wages we made from
punch-card precision and crackled
toffee wrapping blunted turf.

We were there at the heat-rushed
steps of the crowd: when air
replaced body flesh and pressed
red faces to glass around back
stairs and basements.

We were there, clocks striking
points of lime green glow: discomfort
found in a numb bathwater submergence
from places still and broken.

We were there in the swinging
up-down pieces of cloying car honk;
kinds of thing that tears in two.

We were there for it all,
with our brutalist smiles shining through.