Some of what I remember of Philadelphia

The sandstone edifice

of historical interest (theoretically)

obscured by chainlink (useless)

to guard against pigeonshit:

defaced and preserved.

Ghetto palms rip up the roof

of the awful Friends' prison

Hot bright August night

Buildings blinking at airplanes

Bone thin madmen

in fifteen pants

and parkas

glaring, sweating, muttering

tottering past the sewers stench

Pent up boys

yell lust down

at girls passing between

the juvie and the gourmet shop

A million and a half a day awake

to pretzels three for a dollar

in the ruins of schemes and monuments

a cluttered vault of dreams

of the Peacable Kingdom,

ice cream,

fast steel,

Liberty ships and

Liberty bells

Sunrise was an operation in my day

that sent whores to the Roundhouse

while Rizzo and Rocky raised bronze arms

and Ramona Africa hating back

(and who can blame her)

through a bullhorn

to a park

full in the summer

with blacks and whites who don't care

Nicetown and Fishtown and Mantua

Skinny Joe and girlie shows

Summer's stagelit tits

Murder in the newspapers,

and others that don't make it in

The man shot down by a cop on my block

while my daughter watched

I always took it slow

on the Pendergrass curve

I rode around and around

the collapsed and empty dome

of the Centennial

It was all gorgeous and falling apart