Raymond Farr
NY Had Snuffed Bar Fly Written All Over It
1.
The glare of
A quiet street
Without any faces
& winter leaves us
Staring at the joke
Of a leafless tree
Country Joe
& the Fish
Having played
In someone’s
Apartment all night
& the apartment
Empty & quiet
By daybreak
& so we try & make
Ourselves invisible to
Winter, I guess,
But we only make
Ourselves invisible
To each other—
The bus broken
Down on icy
Hemphill Street
      & even if
We stand here
Staring at the joke
Of a leafless tree
Life is the same
If we stare or not
Life is the same
2.
It is a Tuesday
There are 10
Trillion things
We know with
Absolute certainty
That we should
Not know with
Any absolute
Certainty—
The window
Is the window
For instance
In the same way
That the anonymous
Girl in the video
Is just the
Anonymous girl
In the video
          She stands
Naked, but for two
White garters,
Her face at a window
Overlooking…what?
The Big Apple?
The Unreal City?
               It’s not
So much that
She’s altogether
Unaware of the
Trick the next
The next few
Minutes will play
On her
          Or the wan
Halo of glare that
Surrounds her head
               It’s more
The way the clock
Is anything but a
Relentless lover
How it’s 11:56 EST
& the killer walks in—
A relaxed person,
Young, nothing
Of the monster—
& shuts the door
Softly behind him
               It’s how
We feel this ellipsis
This pause—
3.
The girl,
I said,
Reading
Necromance
On the F train
That night
She said,
I was
The girl
That night
Reading
The Tennis
Court Oath
She stared
Intensely
At the strange
Weave of
The lines
In my
Palm
This one’s
Adventure,
She said—
I see the
Inevitable
Long
Downward
Spiral of
The rain
Another
Leads
To an
Over-
Whelming
Question
She told me,
Beware
The banks
Of a black
River!
It’s
Where
You
Perish,
She said,
Riding
Love’s
Blue
Bicycle
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1.
The glare of
A quiet street
Without any faces
& winter leaves us
Staring at the joke
Of a leafless tree
Country Joe
& the Fish
Having played
In someone’s
Apartment all night
& the apartment
Empty & quiet
By daybreak
& so we try & make
Ourselves invisible to
Winter, I guess,
But we only make
Ourselves invisible
To each other—
The bus broken
Down on icy
Hemphill Street
      & even if
We stand here
Staring at the joke
Of a leafless tree
Life is the same
If we stare or not
Life is the same
2.
It is a Tuesday
There are 10
Trillion things
We know with
Absolute certainty
That we should
Not know with
Any absolute
Certainty—
The window
Is the window
For instance
In the same way
That the anonymous
Girl in the video
Is just the
Anonymous girl
In the video
          She stands
Naked, but for two
White garters,
Her face at a window
Overlooking…what?
The Big Apple?
The Unreal City?
               It’s not
So much that
She’s altogether
Unaware of the
Trick the next
The next few
Minutes will play
On her
          Or the wan
Halo of glare that
Surrounds her head
               It’s more
The way the clock
Is anything but a
Relentless lover
How it’s 11:56 EST
& the killer walks in—
A relaxed person,
Young, nothing
Of the monster—
& shuts the door
Softly behind him
               It’s how
We feel this ellipsis
This pause—
3.
It had been raining but
It had not been raining
—John Ashbery
You were It had not been raining
—John Ashbery
The girl,
I said,
Reading
Necromance
On the F train
That night
She said,
I was
The girl
That night
Reading
The Tennis
Court Oath
She stared
Intensely
At the strange
Weave of
The lines
In my
Palm
This one’s
Adventure,
She said—
I see the
Inevitable
Long
Downward
Spiral of
The rain
Another
Leads
To an
Over-
Whelming
Question
She told me,
Beware
The banks
Of a black
River!
It’s
Where
You
Perish,
She said,
Riding
Love’s
Blue
Bicycle
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