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Having a Coke with Guy Debord

Now when I drift looking for cobblestones
to pry up in the uniformly paved streets
I have only two charms in my pocket
a fragment of Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio's
anti-matter painting and a key to the
Manhattan sewer system's branch
entrance under Times Square. But
I'm pissed off for a time and bored.

I drift through the luminous humidity
passing the slammer on Columbus square
tutes and illegal aliens cuffed, unpacked
by bus if I ever get to be a cop
I want to operate the metal entry door
gaze over the Chinese gamblers in the park
and get to The Caldron where I wait for
Guy who despises my bourgeois punctuality
I hear who's been kicked out a naive
student asks us for an explanation
of The Situation and "I certainly didn't come
here to explain things to cunts like you!"
roars Guy over his chowder.
We lash some speed up our noses
in the downstairs can we don't like Le Corbusier,
Aragon, Godard, Althusser, the Surrealists, the British Situationists
and Team Ten we like . . . wait . . um
Guy's pissed that I ordered coke and insists
we drink wine and snort more speed
an ambiance descends and we scrawl on
our maps, napkins and the menus.
Everyone suddenly honks and I wonder
if one worker out of the 8,000,000
backs The Situation as I shake hands with Guy
toss my wristwatch under a passing bus and
drift irked at the thought possibly not.

This poem appears in the 2001 Anthology
View all poems by Lytle Shaw