Sheila Maldonado

obituary howl (Ginsberg / Pietri mashup)

assistant lavaplatos waving genitals and manuscripts
the first spics on the block demanding instantaneous lobotomy
they saw their names listed in the telephone directory of destruction
or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality
confine to worm supremacy in Long Island cemetery
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico 
is a long non-profit ride from Spanish Harlem
to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge
from the nervous breakdown streets 
under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology
the madman bum and angel beat in time died waiting for a five dollar raise
the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors 
that misspelled mispronounced and misunderstood their names
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose
stealing broken windows from each other
now you’re in the total animal soup of time
the groovy hereafter the protestant collection box 
was talking so loud and proud about
jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus
Rise table rise table death is not dumb and disable
eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani learn how to say Como Esta Usted
be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists where the wind is a stranger 
in the yellow morning after the first mental snowstorm
were stanzas of gibberish on the summer of their senses
returning years later truly bald to the definition of the sun

jury duty

I’m in downtown institutions this week the court and the school
not the jail not the hospital close to those

they have been gray days favorite days to lay to wander
like walking around inside my sad city brain

not so sad when you’re walking
moving having to get up and get going whether you like it or not

I mainly daydream of what I don’t like to admit
the city lovers who have left who will leave me and this dark infinity

I’m the last one they love before they leave the city
the place you say you can’t leave but do the place you dream of returning to

I fall into buildings like holes negotiate them
gray haired and stank eye rolling and sleepy

I’m a person not a muse I’m a person unamused
entertaining the thought of a steel bridge and the water below

I won’t disappear like you all do like you all did
why do I insist on being here

cuz I’ve gotten this far cuz I’ve survived the spitting out
cuz where they say I’m from isn’t there cuz I’m from here

my answer to rapture both ecstasy and disappearance
to remain don’t know where else to go