ROCKPILE on the road / 9

David Meltzer


The Red Shoes

And I woke up dancing 
         out of bed past kids crying in clusters 
         mine hers anybody else's 
         piled up writhing howling 
         steamy cracked windows 
         stink of ancient diapers sour milk 
         cartoon rat whiskers crushed Raggedy 
         broken Fisher-Price homes 
         uncoiled rabbits Legos Tonka trucks 
         Pacific mold on windowsills 
         crowing black green alphabet dots 
         burst to spread and mark monk-white 
         walls crazed with Crayola faces 
And I danced down the hallway leapt over the dogs 
         and cats hunting each other for food 
         who turned to attack me like a corps de ballet
         but I was dancing and I'd never danced before 
         music from all the radios propelled me 
Into and out of rooms where my lives erased 
         and I leapt into space free of sorrow or thought or art 
And she pleaded with me to take her 
But I said no it wouldn't work 
I dance alone the radios are behind me 
And she said will you leave me with the kids the rooms the TV 
         broken down kitchen nothing works 
         muggers robbers raiders 
         clawing at doors windows 
         snipers vipers pirates 
         oozing through old keyholes 
         gurus prophets healers Jehovah's Witnesses 
         fisting the frontdoor into a tissue 
Yes yes I yelled dancing past her down the hall 
Yes yes the radios behind me and before me 
Music more conclusive than the sun 
And I dance down Russian Hill into North Beach 
         old nicotine ivory Italian gentlemen 
         young Italian silk misogyny 
         Beatnik survivors tubbed in jukebox coffins 
         drunk on history and hippie hold-out 
         New Age hobos piss at the world passing by 
         bent over double in doorway zoos 
And I dance past Broadway's whores 
         tattered bare butt blushing with belt welts 
         ravaged vagina overlit hand-held camera 
         porno filmhouse aisles I dance down 
         break moviedreamer meditation 
         breaking through tough screen 
         leap a Nijinsky onto a rope 
         sandbag through iron exit door into day 
Dance into City Lights microcosm feudal culture 
Everyone's a poet but I dance 
Everyone's an editor but I dance 
Everybody has a book nobody reads and I dance 
         down an alley into Chinatown 
         attacked by teenage Bruce Lee mafia 
         karate and .38s 
         but I leap higher than Confucius 
         who didn't dance from his hut his palace 
         his systems of etiquette 
I dance to the city radio 
         chien shanai cymbal dragon smash 
         traffic cardiogram 
         chopped-off chickenheads 
         trout scales scraped away 
         crushed boiled crabshell crunch 
         ladle day-old pork barbecue 
         from stainless steel trays 
         into takeout cardboard cartons 
         white porcelain Kwan Yin cracks apart 
         falls on marble Bank of Canton floor 
         cameras on tourists like goiters 
Everyone's amazed when I dance over dim-sum trays 
         in black acrobat slippers 
I need no food I'm fueled by dance 
Radios are in front and back 
         they're in my ears 
         my mouth is a radio 
         everything I see and hear is music 
         everything I say 
         everything is music I dance to 
Dance to a mad speed-babbler's rap 
         tapping like crazy 
         Honey Coles hold your hat 
         Fred watch out 
         better believe it Bubbles 
And no trace of sweat 
And no thought and no art and true to each 
         second my body moves over the fallen 
         and the arising 

                                                                                        [3:1:81]

David Meltzer performs The Red Shoes
with Blodie and members of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band in New Orleans.

ROCKPILE on the road (cont'd)

 
 
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