Two poems from Andrea Holland’s forthcoming collection, High Wire
Macho (Silence = Death)
You don’t ask if the boy playing bongos
on the corner of 10th street
is still there now,
in a green bead rosary,
a styrofoam cup of coins
and elaboration on a riff, drumming
…………1, 2, and 3, 4, and
Irreplaceable boy, held boy,
needy boy on show.
Find the pulse
You’ll go back, nine years later
and half-expect his smile and sweet
hustle
…………this will be on the off-beat
but you know
such boys grow up and settle down,
or in this case, as likely away
or alone in disease and fury,
where to begin?
You’ve got the basic stroke down
It’s a shallow history
of a boy mostly looking, post-busking
then drinking in the back of dark bars;
a nod and meeting up outside,
…………1, 2, and 3, 4, and –
A brief archaeology
that unearths a figure prone
in isolation, hazarded and
nursed by needle and sore drip,
…………off-beat
in too-big green robes
that tie up at the back
…………off-beat, slap and
leave him
undone.
Coven
The idle air outside on the Bowery belies
…………the buzz of bodies bouncing off each other
inside; stale air, each of us dancing in the knack
…………of a violence implied; the fearless edging
into the fray: This is the only sound on earth;
…………push it around. Slam.
Somebody’s blood from a vein Pollocks
…………the toilet door. The handle hangs like a tooth
punched out, head rearing back.
…………We know an imported etiquette exits
even here, among the sticky crowd at CBGBs,
…………a cigarette smoke of understanding
what slamming is for. On stage, the band make
…………every hot twisted body believe in music
as a blatant way of staying sane, and nothing is stable
…………but that is what we’re here for:
velocity, guitar, the instinct for self-extinction,
…………the relentless and urgent need for a spell.