Pity Rack
May 2024
after seeing Arthur’s City Park, September 30, 2023, at the NYC AIDS Memorial
directed by Nick Hallett
~
Scratch loop
Hocket
Left pocket
Headrush
Peter pipes a perfect pickle
Peter passes David a note
Pterodactyl
Tesseract
Koala
Interval
(P-Idea: Opening the inner valve of the poem)
“Wheee!” down the cello slide
“Wheee!” down the retina’s ear
~
CLAM = CALM
OYSTER = STORYE
Restore the story to its previous elegance
Upholster the metaphors, bevel each caesura
Button down the assonance, make it mean
Eminently, huffily, synergistically
Especially for you & only you fuck it
Break all the lines hah yes yes!!
I’ve done it already—
look! There’s Alex picking up
the psaltery bow of metaphor
How about you put on that record
Aren’t you wearing that hat?
Why yes
Who says “why yes” anymore
Here have these samosas
Samosas & pickles my favorite
~
CITY PARK
PITY RACK
ICKY TARP
PICKY RAT
PARTY ICK
TACKY RIP
CAKY TRIP
PRICY KAT
~
Among all the things I could pity
It’s myself that I pity the most
Perched on that bench so pretty
Ain’t I witty ain’t I lost
~
Once I found the river’s reverb it began to echo in my ear
An art to it, an artlessness: river reviver rehear
~
Lea & Shawn spin records into oblivion
Parsa sends syllables through the canopy
ENVIRONMENT at the AIDS Memorial
St. Vincent’s hospital O Vincent saint of poverty
O ancient husk of sound of body
O syllabic prayer O unbecoming park O park of some becoming
of revelation evolution eventuality invitation
~
It’s been so long that I forget the music
It’s been so long that the music stays gone
It’s been a psaltery I’ve been reading Robert Glück
Who Charles Theonia calls Bob in the poem
I can’t call him Bob I’ve never met him
Let alone Jesus
Hello J how was your day today
Good thanks wanna fuck
~
Nat unfurls an electric note
Crouched above the rain of his guitar
Nick unfolds triangular time
Ensemble memory-flecked
Ground damp, future isosceles
Or scalene or equilateral or
~
Guide me, Margery, through this island of shit
Manhattan’s mad and Reuben’s madder
On the sidewalk our dog empties her bladder
In Margery Kempe I hear the chatter of angels
~
[Jim Hodges, “Craig’s closet,” granite and bronze, 90 x 57 x 28 1/2 inches]
Arthur practiced cello in a closet in 1970, the sound too secular for the Buddhist commune where he
lived. Jim builds a closet in the park in 2023 to hold the memories of the living and the dead. A rack of
clothes heavier than clothes should ever be. A jumble of boxes immortalized in stone. If a park can hold a
closet, can a closet hold this sound? If a closet holds this sound, can a man hold this memory?
MEMORY at the AIDS memorial
M-E-M-O-R-Y . . .
~
Everything’s lost and everything’s fine
Everything’s saved and nothing is fine
Everything’s saved and everything’s fine
Everything’s lost and nothing is fine
EVERYTHING NOTHING
SOUND
[ ]
A fine fall breeze
A fine tree
Fine leaf
Fine I’ll have sex
Fine I’ll make dinner
~
Artist of discontinuity under September’s silver disc
Artist of kissed opportunity under the century’s viral risk
Artist of missed perspicacity under this cloud’s oval hiss
~
(P-idea: Lie ear-down on the floor of an elevator then ride to the bottom and back up again.)
~
Musical chairs
Best by: MM-DD-YYYY
Whistle wallop
Glister glimpse
Chkn w/ fries at 45 rpm
A erhu busker on the F line at W 4th
~
(P-idea: Have sex wearing noise-cancelling headphones.)
~
Hay fever! It’s that time of year
Aren’t you a good egg
Don’t you snore at night
Isn’t your skin the softest
Isn’t your heart impure
Isn’t your love the realest
Isn’t desire unsure
Isn’t this the park where we met
Isn’t it spring
Aren’t we going to the spa
How about some ice cream
Isn’t the shop closer
Isn’t it here
~
Cornea
Counterpoint
Arthur’s retinue
Placing a note on the lip of the fountain
Placing a hmmm on the cusp of the tongue
Sing like an iceberg, says the Instagram reel,
dark blue in its crumbling
Whoop like a hedgerow, namely
Reel meaning real me-ning meaning reel
[Da capo al fine]
**
REUBEN GELLEY NEWMAN is the author of Feedback Harmonies (Seven Kitchens Press), a chapbook inspired by Arthur Russell. He is a writer, musician, and librarian-in-training based in New York City, and he coedits for Couplet Poetry. Recent poems have appeared in Prelude, Salamander, Ninth Letter, and mercury firs.
