thanks for letting me speak.

Ahab had it pretty rough.

His wife, after having her nails and eyebrows done,

was thrown out a window

and eaten by pit bulls. You

have to be careful

what you say around

the prophets since they criticize

prostitutes for lacking will power.

But trust me, I know some

prostitutes and they have all the

will power necessary, along with

short skirts and glitter eye-shadow,

condoms by the boxful

and voices that call across cold

streets. The one in the apartment

above the liquor store on Gratiot

writes, between tricks,   transponder

poems about being a receptionist

or a checkout girl at Macy's, then

walks a small child to elementary school with a

lunch in a backpack with a "Frozen"

caricature on the side. There were

these parts in 50's movies where jazz

music was played whenever a prostituted was

on screen, so jazz became unspiritual

and wonton and when played, made your

hips sway in smoke filled dives until

your eyes burned. And Monk could be

heard mumbling something totally  un-intelligible

or Bud Powell, having gone crazy before,

would draw attention to how he held his lips,

since crazy folk hold their lips as if expressing

delight in a room of strangers. But their

all dead and were still alive, and the one

in the apartment above the liquor store

would tell my father, a good way to go insane

is to constantly ask what the hell is

wrong with yourself and expect the

muse you made up,

to answer.

Reviews

[writing mojo]

a brown chicken brown cow feed...farming the individual in youth
that never skips a beating, from the ash filled bum around to the waking life filters
this is the true grit reverence, of selling one's self to the scene that held dusty plaster, which only you in that antiquated way can bring to waggery light of all that jazz once others Bopped from mistakes
now begets these stand around standards ...excellent piece

[Frank]

Yes, you write very well. I was there in that street, I did not want to be there, but as an onlooker I was there. Very well written. Yes, a poem. Enjoyed the style,

[Matching Socks]

Always transported deep into the scene...
I feel your people when you write them. Nice job.

[m.s.early]

What a coincidence. I just wrote a poem tonight that had prostitutes in it.

You dirty city streets resonate in your poems sometimes. I know I can come here and get a taste of something that might of come out of the Harlem Renaissance. Lyrically stunning and candid as usual my friend.

[Emily B]

me, i heard Bessie Smith's "Empty Bed Blues" singing in the background, and I've known prophets, they have no more willpower than any of the rest of us, i think that's why they judge

[W.k.kortas]

What struck me most about this (and God only knows there is a beaver's wet dream of timber to munch on here) is how outside forces, the perceptions of others, can change how art is looked at until one subtly, unconsciously perhaps, begins to mold what they do to meet those perceptions halfway, as it were. The notion of the interplay between ourself and the muse--is it something external, some universal archetype, or is it a creature of our own making--is so maddeningly thought-provoking that it's giving me a headache, and I mean that as the highest of compliments.

[Ken Simm.]

Your thoughts know exactly where to hit, don't they? The best.

[Corset]

Dana when are you going to publish?

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i love this one....yes, as lydi said...fantastic stream of consciousness....
that prostitute in the loft above the store is pretty damn smart...
and the prophets had no idea---they judged too harshly and too soon...and probably could have learned something when that jazz music started to play.

[Lydia Shutter]

FANTASTIC stream of consciousness here. What a trip you took me on with this write! I could see the prostitute who was so much more than she appeared to be. She was a mother and she was trying to make ends meet. Does the poet know why the muse thinks as she/he does? I am not sure. Sometimes the concepts that fly by my imagination are so far out in left field, I wonder where they came from. After all, I am the one writing them and thinking them. Who knows? All I know for sure is, we all want our muses to continue feeding our psyches the way they do....I am glad yours feeds you because your words are well worth the read. They are slice of life poems....and I always learn something from them. Lydi**