from his book: A Far Rockaway of the Heart, Poem #7
July, 1996
This poem was inspired the painting "Native New York," which first appeared in The Nation Magazine. The image subsequently appeared in the book Illuminated Poems by Drooker and Allen Ginsberg.
By Brooklyn Bridge
an elephant stands under the Elevated
in Eric Drooker's painting
in Nation magazine
in its issue on
The Corporatization of the World
In the jungle closing 'round it
a puma waits with shining eyes
as a train slides into view
on its Elevated track
between empty tenements
carrying no passengers
toward the trumpeting elephant
who stands below with trunk upraised
and tusks turned toward the train
and seems not about to
turn and run again
As a naked nymph plays a saxophone upraised
as exotic birds flit about
and huge jungle vines
twine about
the Elevated's swaying stanchions
As the sun turns tropic
over green mansions