" A u t o b i o g r a p h y "

I lead a quiet life
here at Mike’s every day
watching the stars
of Dante’s Billiard Room
and the French guys hooked on pinball.

I lead a quiet life
at the end of East Broadway.

I am an American.

I was an American boy.

I read the American Boy Magazine
and I was a boy scout
in a residential neighborhood.

I thought I was Tom Sawyer
when I caught crayfish in the Bronx River
and imagined it was the Mississippi.

I had a baseball glove
and an American Flyer bicycle.

I delivered the Woman’s Home Companion
at five in the afternoon
or the Herald Tribune
at five in the morning.

I still hear the thump of the newspaper
on those lost porches.

I had an unhappy childhood.

I saw Lindberg land.

I looked toward home
and saw no angel.

They caught me stealing pencils
at the Five and Ten Cent Store
the same month I made Eagle Scout.

I cut down trees for the ccc
and sat on them.

I landed in Normandy
in a rowboat that capsized.

I saw the well-trained armies
on the beach at Dover.

I saw Egyptian pilots in purple clouds
shopkeepers raising their shutters
at noon
potato and dandelion salad
at anarchist picnics.

I am reading Lorna Doone
and a life of John Most
terror of industrialists
a bomb on his desk at all times.

I saw the street cleaners parade
in the Columbus Day Parade
behind the sharp
farting trumpeters.

It’s been a long time since I went
to the Cloisters
or the Tuileries
but I still think
about going.

I saw the street cleaners parade
in a snowstorm.

I ate hotdogs in baseball stadiums.

I heard the Gettysburg Address
and the Ginsberg Address.
I like it here
and I will not go back
to where I came from.

I too have traveled in boxcars, boxcars, boxcars.

I traveled along with unknown men.

I have been in Asia
with Noah in the Ark.

I was in India
when they built Rome.

I was in the Manger
with a Donkey.

I saw the Eternal Gas Station
from a White Hill
in South San Francisco
and the Laughing Woman in a Lunatic-Park
outside the Haunted House
under a mighty downpour
still laughing.

I heard the din of revelry
at night.

I wandered alone
like a crowd.

I lead a quiet life
in front of Mike’s every day
contemplating the world walking past me
in its curious shoes.

Once I set out
to walk around the world
but ended up in Brooklyn.

That Bridge was too much for me.

I have dedicated myself in silence
to exile and cunning.

I flew too close to the sun
and lost my wax wings.

I am looking for my Old Man
whom I never knew.

I am looking for the Lost Leader
I once flew with.

The young should be explorers.

La c