"It contains more genuine tenderness, especially sweet because of its unusual circumstance..."
- American Book Review
"This book does so many of the things we encourage at West End-making the personal political."
- John Crawford / West End Press
"I was enveloped by these poems...there is a vein in them so human, so strong..."
- Rhoda Lerman, author of Call Me Ishtar / Eleanor
"...reads like a warning..."
- Amiri Baraka
PUBLIC SCHOOL 168
is
abandoned
like some remnant of time-soaked simplicity.
.
a childless carriage
on the east side of harlem.
.
a smile dances
when i envision
small hands
pledging allegiance
to manifest destinies
in which they were not included.
.
from a rooftop you hover
like a gothic ghost
above st. lucy's church
where black robed nuns
carried rulers & bars of soap
like guns strapped to their waists
speaking in tones
of catechism & guilt.
.
do you remember the eyes of the children?
lunch room smells?
the song of forgotten games?
.
"red light green light one two three"
.
i stand now
before your shattered broken face
kindergarten laughs
echo the schoolyard
& i remember palms of hands
& eyes of children
.
before we embraced the city
before we met the man who ate glass
and asked about our dreams.
Stewart Brisby
(from A Death In America copyright 1986)
AN OLD ENEMY LEAVING TOWN
for ronnie
________
tonight i returned & found you gone
your death spoken casually
on tongues of survivors who live
where home is closed til 2 a.m.
& mothers keep children
from polluted water.
.
they say you
drank yourself to sleep with
A CAPFULL FOR THE DEAD
& THE FELLAS UPSTATE
a toast to asphalt children
crossing the east river drive
to dance dark green water
at river's edge
in spite of undertow warnings
& because of them.
.
once after scars had healed
i heard you speak proudly
of our violence
& knew you were alone
.
we deserved much better for you than this.
.
warm summerwine settles
in dust between cracks
that once threatened
to break our mothers' backs
& wolverines who dwell the pavement
flock to me now with palm & tarot readings
offering full pardon for felonies
we've forgotten.
.
& they will never understand
why we liked dancing so near
the edge of that dark green water
on the east side of harlem.
Stewart Brisby
(from A Death In America copyright 1986)
