Mongo Reads Poetry (Finally)...

Today I am 29 years old. My birthday has always been strange for me--mixed feelings of complete and utter allegiance to my parents, who are amazing and beautiful people, a bizarre and secretive bond with my brother about our adoption, and a plaguing curiosity about who I look like. It's difficult to know that you look like someone (or that you should, in theory, look like someone) in the world who you've never met...and will probably never meet in your whole life. Twenty-nine years ago a woman of only nineteen years old gave birth to me. I don't care to know her name or where she lives, but I would like to see her face, to see what she looks like. And I don't know if she thinks about me, or remembers anything from that day, but I hope that wherever she is, she's doing quite fine...and knows deep down that I thank her.

And, with that sentiment in mind I, being Mongo, will now read poetry on my birthday.

This one is by Gerard Malanga, the famous photographer and poet who worked with Andy Warhol and who's stuff is now published by Black Sparrow Press (same press as Bukowski, for those who are fans, like me). His collection titled No Respect includes a variety of new and selected poems written between 1964 and 2000. I bought this collection on a whim, bored while at the bookstore one day back in Ann Arbor, late Fall. It has proved to be a true gem-- full of hidden treasures that I discover each time I pick it up. So, today I thank him as well.

A director is a man, therefore he has ideas; he is also an artist, therefore he has imagination. Whether they are good or bad, it seems to me that I have an abundance of stories to tell. And the things I see, the things that happen to me, continuously renew the supply. --Michelangelo Antonioni

Snow Emergency Street

All I know is this slow exhibition of greatness.
A description of what's been
Happening. The pain is not
Clearly defined. These are
The eyes of the young girl and that side of her
Character capable of being
Afraid. Across the street young man walks
Back with hands in pockets.
Children's voices at playground
In distance. The sound
Track of tire treads making sharp turns
In the distance.
Water sprinkler being turned off.
A roadway ribbed with white lines where no one is
Crossing. In its beginning was its end.
A woman, a city, an intellect.
The environment of that experience.
After the affirmations
Who will discover the rejections?

* * *

(Originally published in a collection titled Ten Years After, 1977)