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POEM #8 FROM THE CINDER BLOCK AGE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Kenneth DiMaggio

Twisted rusted spine scraping against
shingle rotting box

even though
your muse was Death
Rock that would forever
tattoo you as loseryour leather
studded story
would always taste
sentimental and lonely
like a 1950s juke box song
“Up on the Roof”

Which for you
was a fire escape outside
of your bedroom where
the fist-size holes
in your walls were covered
by posters of machine gunning-
Pacino in Scarface

--your body slammed broken bed

was held up by milk crates
cinder blocks and stolen library books

And when you sneaked out
to a fenced off metal plate
to smoke that weak but cheap
Mexican pot

you knew
that there was always going
to be a rip or crack
in this world
that could only be
temporarily understood
with a sarcastic riddle
or a cynical slice
of baloney

you knew
that because of your vandalism
not just with a switchblade
but with language
that you could begin
to make your own ballad

that you could separate
from the factory brick
and the Orthodox crucified
church tops
by escaping temporarily
to a gnarled
and rusting
stairway
that became your first
steps
to an outlaw universe

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