Steve Dalachinsky
With Shelter Gone (Fruitflies)
                               
    
fruitflies
seem to be coming out of
my body
out of my very skin
ripening banana
squeezed orange

damned fruitflies

leaving my chest thru my nipples
into every room i enter
around the kitchen sink

i give them purpose
create a purpose
they acquire purpose

alphabet without knowledge
of itself
numbers without sequence
mind too scattered to
give meaning
to

7th & K
where i grew up
larva to adult
among jews among italians among
jews
among letters
#s
on my road thru the decades
past ave.X onto Stillwell
the hot cyclonic streets
theatre of spills thrills
drugs
bugs  &  boils

a movie
wherein                                                          
   you are what you are  watching
& always moving

"....you're my coney island baby
      you mean so much to me
      you're my pretty little lady...'

brooding on the boardwalk
a sideshow
after years of indecisive behavior
hot dogs  &  fries



......these damned fruitflies
      gnawing at my 6pointed innards
      my jewish chakras
                        
over-ripened beads of light
seeping thru the skin
from deep down in the soul
winding towards the shorefront of my
earth
        past the volna cafe
                the tatiana cafe
            & the moscow cafe

winding thru the winter of my birth
the every summer of my life
& back
winding back
winding back
thru the blood & the piss & the shit

winding back winding
back winding back
& winding up once again
& again & again
(damned fruitflies)
in my kishkas
out my chakras
to my eyes

damned kishkas
damned fruitflies
sweet eyes


          

  Steve Dalachinsky was born in 1946, Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared extensively in journals on & off line including; Big Bridge, Milk, Unlikely Stories, Xpressed, Ratapallax, Evergreen Review, Long Shot, Alpha Beat Soup, Xtant, Blue Beat Jacket, N.Y. Arts Magazine, 88 and Lost and Found Times. He is included in such anthologies as Beat Indeed, The Haiku Moment and the esteemed Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He has written liner notes for the CDs of many artists including Anthony Braxton, Charles Gayle, James "Blood" Ulmer, Rashied Ali, Roy Campbell, Matthew Shipp and Roscoe Mitchell. His 1999 CD, Incomplete Direction (Knitting Factory Records), a collection of his poetry read in collaboration with various musicians, such as William Parker, Matthew Shipp, Daniel Carter, Sabir Mateen, Thurston Moore (SonicYouth), Vernon Reid (Living Colour) has garnered much praise. His most recent chapbooks include Musicology (Editions Pioche, Paris 2005), Trial and Error in Paris (Loudmouth Collective 2003), Lautreamont's Laments (Furniture Press 2005), In Glorious Black and White (Ugly Duckling Presse 2005), St. Lucie (King of Mice Press 2005), Are We Not MEN & Fake Book (2 books of collage - 8 Page Press 2005). Dream Book (Avantcular Press 2005). His books include A Superintendent's Eyes (Hozomeen Press 2000) and his PEN Award winning book The Final Nite (complete notes from a Charles Gayle Notebook, Ugly Duckling Presse 2006). His latest CD is Phenomena of Interference, a collaboration with pianist Matthew Shipp (Hopscotch Records 2005).  He has read throughout the N.Y. area, the U.S., Japan and Europe, including France and Germany.
                                               
                                                 © Steve Dalachinsky All Rights Reserved