#4: The Cultural Context 

     When lost in a Champagne Campaign one is always the friend of sex and cigarettes. So begins a fable, 

            With a vignette vex, 

no remorse, no regrets!

       The smoke will dissipate and the bottle once empty, 

Must be taken off the table.

Best to know your class,

Best to know and surpass your station,

Ideology is not like love, 

Yet both have rules and gentle nuances.

While drinking hard, some things are lost in translation.

She said:

Comrade, I have work for you,

“How do you cope with a newly broken heart?”

For the best way to start?

You’ll see!

To get over on a man, is under another man, she told me.

“I’ll tell you how to make Tovarish me….happy.”

First, we have to make bold art constantly.

Found art, forged art, undressed art. Art in motion. 

Art we can touch, Art we can see.

Lewd, crude and out of control art.

Thus explodes a muse like devotion!

Art made by you, in the spirit of loving me!

It doesn’t have to be pretty or even rhyme actually. It must cause commotion!

But we have to make it together somehow. My fake smile, my fake golden hair, ass up and eat. My visionary delight, my thighs are your potion.

        My true feelings, your defeat.

“I’m sorry I was drinking while Russian in New York Grad,”

Undo those words on art, abort me!

You heard that all wrong in translation,

“What I said was to get a good job and completely support me.”

Where do I start!? When things fall apart, when cultures are clashing,

But there is still romance in her heart!

            Second, you have to sing for me! But never to the Voorhi or the cops. Freedom songs, epic ballads. Such is the Melee.

You have to remember the old tongue; and you have to swallow me.

            Your tongue, your rough hands dont instagram follow me.

Remember the right notes, the left and right hooks, and the very disposition of the Old and New love, in the beginning and the end all at once.

You will see blat,

I’ll back you up, best I can, in refrain.  This begets that.

But they need to be songs from the soul and the heart both at once, like the sound of a circle. Your me, subsumed in the course of we.

I’ll lead the first dance, then you just follow me!

“I’m sorry I was drinking while Russian in New York Grad,”

Undo those words on art, abort me!

You heard that all wrong, in translation,

“What I said was don’t speak so many words in English, don’t waste my time with crude emotions. You want me by your side? Pony up the cash to even court her, she.” 

But there is still romance in her heart! It was there at the start!

Third, we have to travel, like a great endless escape.

New cities, new cities, sites! New hotel rooms. New moons, minimal drama, minimal fights. 

New friends, new hats on new keys on new necks on new nights.

Holding hands under the vanilla skies and when the sky breaks open too. Cash cannot be spent when you’re dead, spent it on earthly delights.

Rick shaws, picnics and gondolas and mandalas and lingerie you can see through, whatever the fuck a mandala even is. Or a gondola woo!

Pistols out and moving forward on adventure! Alive, “woke”.

Constant endless walk toward new adventure! She thus spoke.

And the world never gets old, gears get stuck, and get choked up amid the champagne and cigarette smoke. 

“I’m sorry. I was drinking, while Rushing. In New York Grad,”

Undo those words on art, abort me with these sentimental breaches!

You heard that all wrong in translation,

“What I said was, who doesn’t like Malta, like Paris and Bora Bora. Like Maldives. Like white sandy people free beaches?”

But there is still romance in her heart! More heads in the cart?

“Number four, work that pussy like you know what it’s good for.” 

But there is still romance in her heart!

Fifth, we need to save the world, it’s probably true.

The world is hurting. The world is harsh. They say you’re a man of action and struggle, I leave that world saving project completely to you.

“But the world helps those who help themselves.”

College is over Tom Sawyer. Marx was an asshole, if you’re smart as you think you’’ll get a good job and make adult money, as a corporate lawyer.

“I’m sorry I was drinking while Russian in New York Grad,”

Undo those words on struggle, cancel them or abort me!

You heard that all wrong in translation, poems are useless, starvation courting rags.

“What I said was Capitalismo makes amazing food, and red bottom shoes and handbags.

Sixth, we need to eat all the nice foods as they are available to us. We need to indulge in every crevice of the city. 

“Fuss, no fuss.”

Seventh, kids, probably they say we have to make lots of kids. Happy and well raised, all that shit.

As long as you can afford it.

“I’m sorry I was drinking while Rushing in New York Grad,”

Undo those words on kids, abort me! You heard that all wrong in translation, your shirt changed the fee.

“What I said was having kids is for suckers. That’s for those who have a belief in the future.”

Life was quiet, now it’s a bit better- your cash and a small suture.

Eight, “Never leave my side please!”

Ever for too long. I need your attention, now.

And back to number 4; which was skipped actually skipped in the world of the real somehow.

Way back to the when?

We have to make love, again!

“We never did,” she said.

In all best forms and low forms and high Russian and low English and all the between ways to say defy. 

Russian to English, emotions and thighs lie,

Cry, all that is being said about cynical loves, and opportunistic loves. Reading past the dollar signs, 

We are the very same age, of the same class of tumult and drama,

Born on opposite sides of the geopolitical, not the class lines.

When you hear such art, or such cold calculated self inflicted interest,

You do yours, I will dance the landmines.

New York Grad

December 1st 2020