Adam Fieled, finalist in the first MMM Poetry Online & in print Contest

 

4325 Baltimore Ave.

 

Jason cooking flounder on a filthy range,

   picked up at 40^th & Walnut where Penn students

mingled w/ artists, Chomsky-ites, bums, mothers,

   where French bread for two bucks we’d carry

around for walks home down rustic mansion’d

    streets, fish-waft filling lovably threadbare

kitchen laden w/ mustard & crumbs— gone—

Mary’s Acme pesto pasta, Olive-oil Goddess

   she’d make a pot on pot in a pot & we’d

have a bowl from the pot watching hot

   French-flicks in the vivid living room, gone—

paintings, Mary’s evocations Dionysus & Apollo,

   Jason post-Dali post-structuralist Dada &

Derrida derived violences, submitted to smitten

    PAFA judges winking secretly at Jason’s tight

ass, Mary’s too, they screwed, we screwed, we

   all were screwing each other secretly, tenderly,

flecked w/ little chips from falling ceiling, gone—

parties on green-awning’d porch, weed midnights;

   butt-smoke, frost-breath, gun-stocked West Philly

cops stop to shock us w/ looks, putting no

   cell-bar cramps on druggy St. Steven, gone—

moments later I’d drag Mary into her wood-

   floored torrid bedroom & open-door fuck

her, hoping Josh & Kevin might spy

   us, one time on whiskey Mary’s diaphragm

got stuck inside her, I felt it, fucking her,

   we laughed, Mary’s hair then was

long down to her ass, raucous, gone—

Grace, Jason’s grace, a minx of jinxing, she from

   rich Connecticut knows Salinger reads my poems

at parties makes snot comments, silver-belted,

   out on the back porch in October wind we stood,

Grace, raven tresses Heaven-breasts innocent

   sex, girlfriend who had Jason by the face, ass,

I made scathing Spears comment everyone

   hissed, instead we put on Stones Kinks Elliott

Smith, Josh who played music, gone, now w/ Sara,

   jailbait date stealing cars & kisses, back-seat

caresses blonde tresses sun-dresses, trouble-

   starting, Kevin’s dread on my head, gone—

Kevin dumb chimp we called him big beast of

   a man writing bad songs doing Ritalin lines

raging through nights fucking Diana, gone,

   moans that broke us up, Oh Kevin Oh Kevin,

waitress of the hunt, Diana, blank stare, no cares

   or qualms taking alms from everyone, doing

laundry, Diana & me in lust discreetly, doors

   open, Bohemian dream-time—

apogee—everyone hot—everyone fucking, painting

   making music, boozing, drugging, sucking, humping,

leaning on nothing but the night’s promise, always

  more night, another line, another ride, time

to find out food, hues of mood, clues of color, love

  shape, O Lord we were the crux of ourselves,

our nexus the nexus, our moment the moment, all

  now reduced to ash, nothing but a shut window,

a fiery memory of an open one…

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

Adam Fieled is poet, essayist, critic, musician, and the founder of two artist co-ops, This Charming Lab and the Philly Free School. He has work in Jacket, Rain Taxi, Boog City, Great Works, The Argotist, Hinge, TS Review, hutt, te_a_tro, Siren's Silence, American Writing: A Magazine, Night Rally, the Philadelphia Independent, Cake Train, Hidden Oak, and edits the blog-journal PFS Post (www.artrecess.blogspot.com). He has released three albums, two all music, "Darkyr Sooner" (2000, mp3.com) and "Ardent" (2004, Webster Street Gang Productions), and a spoken word album, "Raw Rainy Fog" (2002, Radio Eris Records). A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is currently completing an MFA in poetry at New England College.