In the Village

Always smoke puffing up from grids,

rumble below,

rattle of store windows above,

and faces

misrepresenting the person behind them,

murderers, poor artists,

maybe just workers or layers of hands —

you’d never know

from what their eyes,

their lips, are giving you.

Bongo players in the park,

creakily moved chessmen,

guitarist, cap and flat James Taylor —

only pigeon droppings can relate.

Need a coffee,

maybe a glazed doughnut,

downstairs café

staring up at gray-haired bohemians

strolling by,

the last to know

Andy Warhol in the flesh.

A neighborhood whose time is passed —

the biggest name

is scrawled into graffiti.

Tourists, students from the university,

stare into the bars, the coffee houses,

have never heard of any of

the coming attractions.

Store-front church for small beliefs;

last record store —

guy can’t even get arrested

for selling bootlegs;

second hand book mart,

Marxist tracts dirt cheap.

No Dylan, no Fugs,

no beats, no provocation,

no politics, no revolution.

There’s nothing here now

but that all that something back then.

— John Grey