*Footnote to a Postmodern Law Journal

(Upon Visiting the New York Law School, April 1997)

April (no longer cruel)
    poetry and soy product month
I visited yer school quaffed swimming pool
    sized beer dithering in men’s room¹
in shadow of JFKJ’s cool
    intaglio eyes.

Rode cab back to East 57^th and Second Avenue
with mad Eastern-Euro taxi artist spoke of poesy
and El Greco quickly realize shared mind frenzy
throwing theory at one another like goo.

He wouldn’t talk about himself but for money
I gave him 5 grand I kept in my sock for such
contingencies² funny we didn’t want the ride to end
and when it did he looked at me with pieta eyes.³

Later I walked 42^nd Street looking like poet walking 42^nd Street:

     O market place of ADULT VIDEOS and
     confusion you have become too clean⁴ for me I wept
     lugubrious impermeable membrane sterile tears.

I had this dream: law students naked embracing
stalagmites in warm cave of Platonic ideals in thermal
justice of Mother’s womb and somnolent breasts.

This just in:
Professor Pausesnore, legal mandarin, Master
Beta-Tester for Fortune 500 company
theoretical manifest destiny apologenitalia say:

All good things come to those what born wid
brains and no scruples
or money and no pupils
and if you gots both you’ll become the Host!!

Someday I shall whisper into ear of Justice
Scalia: Human being is volatile organic
compound be gentle!

Markets are dreams
turned inside out
the preference
mapping
of each soul
an intricate patchwork
quilt and I am guilty as
next economist of violating
the sanctity of the convex
function which describes your
furtive smile : )

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:"⁵

I went inside Chrysler building
to get luminous details
so could write a poem to this most
noble of mankind’s structures
and they are: 

1. no brochure, info. or anything and
2. observation deck been closed for 60 years!⁶

O hypodermic to the sky/Chrysler building/my oh my

DANGER! SIGN ERECTIONS ON BROADWAY!

Let’s discuss the Metropolitan Museum of Art
where my favorite work was the NAME
of Norwegian painter:

Odd Nerdrum⁷ –

And all those rooms filled with nothing
That can advance the material conditions
Of the human race
But art, poor pathetic art
Languid eternal slacker of
Minds internal eye
Nefarious drunkard child
Copious reasons to expire
Living hand to mouth constantly
Risking absurdity on Larry’s wire

Meanwhile the aged professor
writes on his student’s paper:

O beauteous student I long to brush
the back of my hand gently cross your cheek
I shall design for you a course of study so
sublime that you shall weep at the end of
every class.⁸

On the train home I read Howl – Uncle Al I’ll miss you so
but we shared time in the Village tho⁹
The next day is a Sunday and
I go to a poetry reading and when
I come home my wife is crying, my
wife who hates most sports -- golf in
particular -- is crying cause Tiger Woods
has won the Masters. Tiger Woods son
of African-Asian Americans (who would be
outcast half-breed in most countries on this
Earth) stands triumphant waving his smile and
endorsements about in frenzy of real American
fantasy come true O Rosa Parks what made you
take that seat was it economic efficiency or the
passionate bleeding of soul’s lost parameters
in sweet iambic pentameters the articulate
bombardment of every atomic particle
with visionary tears?

O Odd Nerdrum, O Chrysler building,
Beloved queer Allen someday the molecules
that swam in you will design skyscrapers on the moon¹⁰
someday Tiger Woods will be President, someday the
Pleasure Dome of true Paradise will allow everyone in

Is this a great Constitution or what!

¹ A shadow fell across the urinal suggesting a veiled Madonna.
² Poetry is a lie that tells the TRUTH.
³ I fear he cared too much and caring too much as we all know can drill holes in the space/time continuum.
⁴ Look I understand why fat Republicans don't like sex -- I don't like the idea of sex with fat Republicans.
⁵ What are the legal ramifications of a pleasure dome in today's moral climate -- its impact on efficient resource allocation...(discuss).
⁶ You see fellow Americans, as it is not the tallest building we care not for it although it is certainly the most aesthetically pleasing of buildings.
⁷ It would be more utilitarian if everyone had numbers instead of names.
⁸ I understand that next semester they will offer a course that investigates the secret codes and symbols in Shakespeare and Dante.
⁹ Remember footnote number 2.
¹⁰ A fellow poet was reading once and he said "Look! Madonna's Nipple!" just as Allen Ginsberg walked into the room -- and of course it was true.

© 1997 - 2003 Perry Lindstrom

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