Dirty White Leather

White leather was stained.
Black marks and crust covered the hems.
Stains beaten in.
The rubber bottoms remained white;
they clean easily
but wear quicker than the leather.

Clean

The day comes in
Fires lift eyes
as the moon drops somewhere else
Tendons taut
like rubber bands around the morning paper
left alone with others
all to step over
Swirling the dust of too many stories
Settling back into an empty frame.

Awake.

Radio disk jockey, men with satin jackets, sexist, racists, drunks, robbers, liers,
on the street another man spits up flem
dripping down from his lips
to the sidewalk, and intimate space
mumbling something, cursing the radio,
stumbling, stumbling, forward:

Watch him.

He pulls a green bottle from under his jacket
tugs at pants
pulling the hem up from the walk.
Don’t look at the awful hem
wishing your mother or girlfriend had sewn.
Put your watch on
you’re late.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Watch him.

The lights are bright
paintings from the Renaissance
flash likes balloons at the circus
white nudes in the half shell
clowns holding string from below
Angels, grotesque confectionary, blow through her hair.
He is still short
with a adie head and glasses
expecting too much from you
teaching for just long enough
to lift his black stained wings,
you push away despite the cost.

Watch him.

The paths are crowded
with people and bags and books.
They are prepared to read them.
You think the world is in for a change
but the stains are beaten in.

Dorian LaGuardia

April 1989