Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me(11)

O: “I don’t want you to die of fireflies … a luminous death!”

_____________________

12-27-10:

Palace Hotel, San Francisco—Over Christmas: In bed, lights out:

O: “Oh, oh, oh …!”

I: “What was that for?”

O: “I found your fifth rib.”

In the middle of the night: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could dream together?” O whispers.

_____________________

1-1-11:

To Do:

- Rent check, etc.

- New phone?

- Apartment!

- Call Mom

- Buy/Start journal

_____________________

1-4-11:

On the word list:

I: “What do you list toward, Oliver?”

O: “Other than libidinal listings?”

I: “Those go without saying.”

O: “I want a flow of good thoughts and words as long as I’m alive … and you? What do you list toward?”





Man Waiting to Get Into a Fashion Show





A POEM WRITTEN ON THE STARS


I went out for a walk at about six thirty. Someone said it was supposed to rain but the skies looked clear to me. I headed up Eighth Avenue, crossed over at Twenty-Third Street, and at Tenth Avenue saw a stairwell going up and took it. I was on the High Line. That much I’d expected. What I had not anticipated was how crowded it would be, like being stuck on a moving sidewalk at an airport. But the night was too nice to begrudge anyone anything, particularly a chance to experience beauty.

So I imagined I was a tourist, too, headed for a distant gate to board a plane to a place I’ve never been.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my hat. I didn’t realize this until I had exited the park at Thirtieth Street, by which point I couldn’t imagine going back up to retrace my steps. I chose to take the lowlife route home, in the shadow of the High Line, instead.

It’s a different world down there. I stood at the mouth of a car wash, circa 1970, empty but operating. I came to a gas station where fourteen taxis were lined up for a single pump. I almost hopped in one but kept walking. I saw a pay phone up ahead—a pay phone!—and had to take a look. I flashed on how you had to plug them with quarters when making a long-distance call—the sound of the coins dropping, the magic of voices connecting, the disconsolate feeling when your coins ran out.

One man was using the phone, another leaning against the booth waiting in line. The leaning man was dark-skinned and looked striking in his dark clothes, as if dressed for cold weather. He was holding a bouquet of white roses. He looked as if he lived on the streets.

I smiled at him and tipped my missing hat. “Gorgeous night,” I said, and I felt it was true, though the streets here were deserted and dirty; part of the gorgeousness in that moment was he and the old phone booth. He smiled back.

At the corner, I felt a presence and turned around. The man with roses was walking toward me very fast. The rose heads bobbed up and down against his chest, and I thought of a dozen bareheaded babies.

“I know you,” I heard him saying. “We’ve met.”

I did not rule this out. I had had many memorable encounters with strangers in my years in New York. The man stopped in front of me and stared into my eyes as if trying to read my mind. Then his eyes brightened. “Did I write a poem for you?” he said.

I stared back, searching my memory. A curtain lifted: Winter, 2009. Two in the morning. A snowstorm. I get out of a cab at Seventh and Christopher, and see a homeless-looking man on the corner. I give him the five bucks left from my cab fare. He thanks me but says he never takes something for nothing. All he can give me is a poem in return. He gives me a list of options.

“A love poem, of course,” I request. And so he stands there, in the whirling snow, and recites by heart a poem about love—and, being about love, heartbreak. The words go from his mouth to my ears and are carried off by the wind. Two-and-a-half years later, on a different corner but under the same sky, we met again.

“Billy, I’m going to write another poem for you,” he said. His name, he reminded me, was Wolf Song. He wanted to write it down for me this time. Neither of us had anything to write with. “Will you buy me a pen?” the poet asked.

There was a convenience store behind us. I bought Wolf Song a black ballpoint pen for a dollar. He got a beer from the fridge; I paid for that, too.

We left and started walking. “Come on, I’m taking you to my archive,” Wolf Song said. “You’ll see; it’s covered with poems.” He had the pen behind his ear and his beer in a paper bag.

I got a little nervous. The sun was setting. We were heading down a nearly empty street. From above us on the High Line came the buzz of the crowd; if I were to yell, no one would hear me.

“We need some paper, Billy,” he said.

There was a scrap of newspaper on the sidewalk, torn from the Times. He picked it up. Something caught my eye: “Look, there’s a map of the sky.” I recognized the Sunday “Sky Watch” column—a chart of the constellations.

Wolf Song looked stunned. He said he’d been thinking about a poem about the sky all day long. “It was meant to be, then,” I said. “Will you write it on the stars for me?”

He led me to his archive: a doorway, just a little enclosure. There were no poems posted on the walls. But to him there were. This was his retreat for poetry-making. I could almost feel his words encircling us.