You wake up on 57th Street beach while the febrile illumination of the moon works its magic trick and squeezes itself into the confines of the empty mescal bottle. The buildings in the distance stalk the land and your quiver of flaming arrows lies tossed in the pit. You can’t decide whether you are a beached whale or a Jonah spit out upon the shore to start anew. That is when, after years of trying, you write a drunken ode to this neighborhood that has held you like a sacred seed all these years in its belly:

When Hyde Park swings upon a hinge
And each and every mind is ajar

Then the beaches like waves shall slowly swirl
Rise themselves up and spit loudly upon the gloomy lake

And the Earth like clouds shall gather itself thickly
And darkly spit rain into the star pocked sky

And the buildings like bums shall weakly uproot themselves
And stumble penny poor and raving mad through the streets

Then crazy you and crazy me shall look madly eye-to-eye
And tremble firmly upon the ground

As twisted tongue says to bent tooth: Dese are mad times
Mistah Jones. Bad times indeed.