This is another poem from our childhood, actually Jerry's
and mine.
We grew up in Newark, New Jersey, which was, as you know,
first of the suburban destroyed cities in America,
I guess you would put it.
It's called "Blackstone".
Blackstone was a great magician that we were taken to see.
And I guess the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
"Blackstone, when Blackstone the magician
cut a woman in half in the Branford theater,
near the famous Lincoln statue and already
partway down the chute Newark, he used a gigantic buzz saw.
And the woman let out a shriek that out-shrieked the whirling
blade and drilled directly into the void of our little boy
crotches.
That must be when we learned that real men were supposed
to hurt women, make them cry, then leave them, because we
saw the blade go in, right in.
Her waist was bare, look.
And so in her silvery garlanded bra, shining,
were her breasts around silvery, garlanded tops
of breasts shining, which must be when we went insane
and were sent to drive our culture insane.
Show me your breasts, please.
Shame on you, hide your breasts, shame.
Nothing else mattered, just silvery garlanded breasts.
And still she shrieked.
The blade was still going in under her breasts.
And nothing else mattered.
Oh, Branford theater, with your scabby plaster and threadbare
scrim, you didn't matter.
And Newark, your tax base oozing away to the suburbs,
you didn't matter, nor your government by corruption
or swelling slums.
You were invisible now.
Those breasts had made you, before our eyes, vanish.
As Blackstone would make doves, then a horse before our eyes
vanish.
As at the end, factories and business
from our vanquished city would vanish.
Oh Blackstone, gesturing, conjuring
with your looming, piercing glare,
oh, gleaming hurtling blade, oh, drawn
out scream, oh, perfect thrilling arc of pain."