::04:29:08::

::: Thank You Mr. Brody :::

The grass grows
With the wild onions
Just as it does
With the actors and the daffodils,
Musicians, tulips, painters and weeds

There is guava in my gut
And dried French wine on my lips
Crust on my weary beard
My neighbors are
Always under construction
Building fences
Rather than conversations
Crying them to sleep
Over inches of Parliaments
And plastic bottles of Colonial Club Vodka

Oklahoma won’t call me back
But he will eventually
I want to tell him
And every real Mike I meet
No one buys my shine
Or publishes my shine
Or represents my shine
So I make up new ways
Everyday
To carry it with me
My portable studio
In my laboratory notebook
In my new beat generation
Jack Spade grey
My Levis and Harley boots
Keeping my distance
In Lucky Strike
Behind circular shades
Of Soho
While Mormons and shipments of Jell-O
Are continually arriving
At JFK

Call me Szalla
Because
That is my name
Polish German French
Pronounced like drawing
A window shade
In an empty room
To let the eons of star light in
Another Faulkner novel
Another Hopper painting
Another Herzog Film

Another invisible name that writes
And grips the hand
Of Adrien Brody
Both of our wrist bones real
Prophesizing
Flowers, blood and dust
Without knowing
Each other’s mothers
Or
That we both are
Katzelmakers
In this dead American imagination
Without knowing
He had never been
To the Burgh

If only I had known
I would have mentioned
The Iceberg
In my wild onion heart
Whose mass
Hides mostly
Below the surface
Of all
The unknown
The unrepresented
The non-emerging
Artists
Frozen deadly
Below the surface
Of this new 21st century Kat

No one says Kat
Anymore
Just like
Very few in New York City
Say thank you.
So Mr. Brody
I want to say
We met each other
Half way
With a solid hand
Sky blue conversation

Mr. Brody
Remember
You carry the future
In your back pocket
And when
You place your ear
To the wall of memory
Take out
That simple folded note
That I still claim
Is not the best
Or the worst
Take it out
Read it out loud
To the daffodils
And the weeds
Then take a cigarette to it
And let this Phoenix
At Lucky Strike
Rise
Until we meet
Again

Written by: ~ J.D. Szalla

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