CITY CORNER
I met a woman once on a city corner. We were waiting
R E C E N T P O E M S
Feature Encounter
I took the third one in from the aisle.
The lights dimmed
for the newsreel. They arrived as
the feature began - man on the end,
the woman next to me.
A scent of lavender came to me
as if on a whisper.
I was keenly aware of underskirt
stirrings - legs sheathed
in black nylon.
Passion, betrayals, and murder
played out on the screen.
A melancholy sax in
my ear. They leaned in -
speaking low.
Her sighs softly heard.
I imagined a brief glance had
faintly grazed my cheek.
Our elbows touched lightly
on the armrest.
She rose and left - trailing her
seductions. The lavender
lingered - the movie ran on.
The man stayed 'til the end.
I watched the credits.
2023
MY NAME IS TOM SMITH
My name is Tom Smith. “Yes, really!” Is my response to
women in bars and cops who stop me on the street because
I look like somebody. Some other people in bars take me for
a narc because – they tell me later – of the way I look or
because of the way I walk. When they find out my name, they
sort of step back a little and shoot me a sidelong glance. I don’t
mind. I think it’s kind of funny. My mother, Mary Smith, snickered
when I told her. She still thinks I look more like Charley Manson.
My name is Tom Smith and I work in this here beat up, red brick
factory in Detroit. I get along with most everybody even though
there are a lot of assholes in this world and some of them work
here. It’s 1985 and I’ll be dead in 2 years at 48. Somebody will
find me on the floor of my mobile home in Belleville. Too many
cigarettes, booze and a bad diet I guess. Can’t really blame the job.
I’m here in this life ‘cause I got nowhere else to be. I had a double
bypass a while back or else some other asshole would be working
this press right now.
Me and the ex-wife divorced a long time ago. Our three kids are
grown up and living away from me and her. Two are doing OK. But
that one girl? Well – she’s a lot like me. Likes to have a good time.
She’ll finally get married after I’m gone but it won’t last. My other
two will hang in there. As for me? Once in a while after the bars
close and that horny old thang raises its ugly head, I call up my
emergency lover-girl and we have a good time. She understands
and doesn’t question. In a few years she will write a poem about
finding my grave among graves in a lifeless barren field. Later,
she writes, a visit to a favorite old cemetery satisfies her search
for evidence of a life among the discarded beer cans and time-
worn stones. My name is Tom Smith.
But you knew all that and more you won’t tell. The presses will fall
silent at last. Three black crows will stand high ── nodding on their
roost. I will yield and slip silently away. I will take nothing because
I brought nothing. I will give to you what I had ── to hold ‘til it’s
your time. You will remember me long after I cock my head and
plunge from the ledge. And you will write a poem about me ──
or will it be about you. My name is Tom Smith.
CITY MAN for Lisa
Cadillac Square, in the light of day,
bustles with the business of
commerce and traffic, taxi cabs
and limousines. Fashionable
women escorted to bistros.
Shadows lengthen – obscuring
sins of the coming hours
This late night a solitary figure
emerges from the labyrinth–
WSJ under arm, briefcase
in hand – makes his way to a
chauffeured black Jaguar purring
at the curb. Sewer steam rising to
an amber triangle beam.
A southbound bus pauses – blocking
my view. A woman yells my name
from a speeding car heading north –
her black locks flowing. Purple tail
lights flicker, diminish as the Jag slips
in behind, bound for its’ Bloomfield
marble and mahogany cage.
I hesitate and watch as the bus
continues on. Then somewhat
cautiously I step from the median
and head eastward to my
Gratiot Ave walk-up studio –
my cat, Cat, purring at the door
patiently for footsteps on the stairs.
2023
Excerpts From A Life Bio
I first met Joe in 1970 at the Fountain Lounge Bar on Joy Rd in
Detroit. Joe Goleski or as Jean the bar owner pegged him-Cigar Joe-for
the cheap, crooked, little, extremely rank smelling cigar stuck in his
mouth as he hunched over the green felt pool table surveying the field
of colored balls - calculating his next shot.
I started hangin’ out there occasionally around 1965,‘66 a year or two after getting hired in at the Michigan Consolidated Gas Co as a staff photographer in 1965. The Go-Go-Girl craze started to become more popular in Detroit and neighboring areas and Jean also had a few girls dancing there. And there was also a pool table. Not a “regulation” size table of 9 ft long but a “bar” size table of about 5 – 6 ft long. They were small because the bar owners just didn’t have the room for the bigger tables. Even though these tables were popular with customers (which for some were the best reason to go to any particular bar) they still took up valuable space for sit-down drinkin’ tables and chairs. But the owners still made money from the pool games which cost $.50 – $1 .00 per via the coin slot on the side of the table.
So by the time I started to hang out at bars in 1965 at the tender
age of 25 with a steady paycheck as hot shot gas co photog, a pretty
slick 1961 Chevy Impala and a “rocket in my pocket”, most every joint in
town had Go-Go Girls and a pool table. It wouldn’t be for a couple or 3
three years before the California topless thing migrated East to
Detroit. Jean never did go topless at her place. Just pool and Go-Go.
“This is Ames Mister.” And no gambling on games. We played for $1 drinks
and she kept a log of who was owed drinks. She collected the money. Her
two sons worked the bar for her after her husband got sick and died and
she wanted more time off. Rich and Gregg were 
The red neon sign a-top a tall pole outside the door blazed with a depiction of a fountain that splayed blue neon sprays of water in a blinking fashion and scripted letters spelling out the name THE FOUNTAIN LOUNGE•COOL INSIDE•TV. The fountain inside was actually a large bird bath type that dribbled water up and out the top center pipe a couple inches before splashing down into the basin full of decorative rocks and sea shells – all lit from the ceiling with colored lights of red, yellow, green and blue. The water re-circulation pumps electrical cord ran out the bottom and was duck taped to the carpet on its way to the wall plug.
By the way – I’ve seen that carpet at closing time with the lights turned up. Not a pretty sight of unbelievable scum and scuz and crud and all matter of body droppings and shit dragged in from the street of grease and gum and cigarette remains and mustard and food droppings from plates enjoyed at the bar with beer, potato bits from bags of chips, French fries and hamburger grease and tobacco ashes and sinus spittle and female makeup bits of lipstick and powder and nail polish and all kinds of shit aforementioned dragged in on the soles of boots from the parking lot of animal turds out there and hair of all species and more grease and oil and dead grass and weeds and fresh and fossilized remains of worms, birds , cats and snakes and more spit and nasal oysters and puke all picked up on the sole treads of shoes and boots and deposited on the carpet and ground in to the rest of all of it already there. Not a pretty sight at all.
The fountain itself was at the front of the bar-room to the left of the front door and up two steps in the center of a circular area ringed with a semi -circle of black vinyl covered bench with a few tables placed intermittently along it. The bar counter ran from there and along the left wall for 40-45 ft with stools for 15 customers. The pool table area at end took up about 12 sq ft in the corner.
Opposite was a piano bar with stools half-circled around it. Shorty Long, a short stocky black guy used to sing and play on the weekends before the girls came along – then the top of the bar became a stage for them. 0l Shorty played a dangerous game in that neighborhood – he always seemed to have a couple of very flashy blond white chicks hangin around him there – he flaunted it and then one day I heard something about him and a gun shot and the Belle Ilse bridge - all in the same sentence?? Never saw him again. His job there was gone anyway – the Go-Go took over for most of the week.
When we weren’t shooting pool Joe and I used to sit at a table in front of the stage and make lewd and lascivious comments to each other about whoever was dancing up on stage in lewd and lascivious ways. A couple of giggly boys we were half juiced up on Budweiser and me sometimes on shots of peppermint schnapps also. They couldn’t hear us but they could tell we were talking about them – staring daggers at us promising, telepathically, to stab us at the end of the dance.
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