Julia Vinograd's* handing out books,
As if the stock market's fallen
To an irreparable place
Where America's turned into chaos
And the Berkeley gum zone is a blood bath,
When the leftover sandwiches remain uneaten
'Cause the owners are clumps of twisted flesh
In the doorway of Café Intermezzo,
Pockets emptied,
Fillings pulled,
Hair shaven,
And the skin pulled tight over neo-conservative lampshades -
Concentration camp of the future.

Vinograd is giving books away,
Handing them out as if they were fliers,
A poet's document,
No longer responsible for the
Soul's healing.
If only the soul had ears,
It could hear her lethargic feet
On the pavement
Fronting Café Mediteraneum,
In a black dress,
With steel foot brace,
On a wobbly course with age
And the circus of surrealism.
She's walked a long way,
Bells and whistles
In the sunlight,
On a transient's backpack
Heading to People's Park
For an uncomfortable nightmare.

Vinograd's on the corner peddling poetry books.
The only problem, they're infrequent momentos
Of wisdom,
The meter off by a few beats,
Perhaps as the coffee filtered through,
It was interrupted.

Vinograd's done for, barely walking,
Heavy, feigned smile,
Disappointment aimed at herself,
Like a finger,
Nail in the sternum,
Uncomfortable reminder.
She sulks,
Cause no one has money,
Pockets empty,
Life upside-down.

You'd know if you sat here,
Ripped vinyl, coffee-stained Formica, jazz in the atmosphere,
As if the past were background music,
Occasionally, you smell perfume,
Hear hoots of the blackman,
European virgins,
As single sentences,
The clicking of ten speeds,
Revolutions of the truck's transmission,
"Balance" spoken as if it were understood,
Dogs eating better than their masters, (hopefully).

Vinograd's dead, buried in the cemetery of herself,
Like a flower leaning over the edge
In a tie-died vase, 60's Deco,
Funny shape, almost popular,
Pink carnation with yellow veins running through it.

Vinograd's a funny shape,
Inflatable clown that won't go down,
She keeps popping up when you kick sand from your Birkenstocks,
Or enter the hovel of collected rants,
Bar room brawlers of verbiage,
Cantankerous minstrels of the spoken word,
Pop-up humans with choppy speeches
Taken down with an angry: "I've had it!"

Vinograd's a memory of the good times,
Previous to the erosion,
When we gave up on a room of one's own
It's a café in the off hours,
Aversion to family,
Multilingual explorers of business as usual,
Practical answers to pick-up lines:
Dirty stares and disinterest.

Vinograd was never a beautiful woman
Homely at best, heavy-set, clunky,
Not as smooth as the vending machine
Chained to the pole,
Privy to traffic with a purpose,
Surrounded by youth
With realistic goals
Always wanting to be their mother,
This Vinograd,
She hadn't realized the times changed.

You can't remember Vinograd's words
Now that the century is ending
And the economy is back to normal.
You stare at her and wish for the best,
Blow kisses even,
And watch her try to sell books
To patrons with sweat marks on their fishing hats
Or hair tied across their foreheads
Mumbling arguments that are unanswerable.

That's the end of an era,
When the hero is a pathetic wanderer.
You feel sorry.
You thank yourself for being weary.
The mind is so persuasive,
Serious gestures in the mirror,
Fogged by the hot air coming from speeches,
In absentia,
In apartments cluttered with papers,
Unpublished momentos of a mind that
Thought it could pay for itself.
It's just black felt-tipped marker
On the bare walls of the facilities,
Free clothes in a plywood box,
Paper cups with tops ripped off,
Nervous fingers, sweaty hands, cleavage for on-lookers.

Vinograd mourned herself
In a black dress
Selling what was better off unpublished.
Even the disenfranchised have friends in high places, apparently.
There's no accounting for taste,
On any level.
The truly great minds
Have an aversion to Bohemia.
There's no reason not to take care of the vessel,
To acquire tools to express.
Vinograd is dead.
God rest her soul.

*Berkeley, California Beat Poetry Icon.

Poetry Magazine