New York Is Kicking My Black Ass

by Shane Allison

Told my friend Todd over cold salsa and chicken quesadillas
that I'm gonna take a bite out of New York's ass.
But I got lost my first day here.
My mother cried on my shirt.
She smeared her makeup while wiping her tears.
She kept saying, watch who you drink with, be careful of AIDS.
Them people have AIDS bad up there.
She couldn't shop for shoes in this city like she wanted
'cuz she was too worried about me.  Her worst nightmares
sliced the throat of her nerves like Jason Voorhees.

After unpacking tee-shirts & jeans, stuffing 12 yrs of poetry
beneath my bunk bed like a squirrel tucking away nuts
in its cheeks, I decided to take a tour of the place
I would spend the next two years of my life.  Walked down
the streets that reek of burnt meat and carbon monoxide.
Young entrepreneurs sell ten-dollar watches, incense & blockbuster
movies newly released on video.
Went to Strand Books for a fix of poetry,
literary journals.  But all I saw was a cute bald guy
in a sexy black t-shirt
sweeping up dust bunnies & wrappers from snack cakes.

I bought nothing.

Drove straight through states & cities the night before.
Survived off chips & candy bars 'cuz for me, it was New York
or no place at all.
But since I've been here, New York has been kicking my ass.
I blew the Statue of Liberty a kiss, but she never noticed me.
She's too busy shaking tourists out of her crown.
Newly wedded couples honeymoon beneath her robe.
Crabs of people play in her pussy.

I've gotten lost four times.

Catch the wrong Subway trains that want to take me to Brooklyn,
want to drop me off in the belly of the Bronx.
Native New Yorkers with their Big Apple accents
are not as rude as the rest of the country thinks.
They point this southern boy in the right direction.
They tell me where to go & what to do once I get there.

I'm sure to find my way with the help of Park Enforcers,
Newsstand Nazis.  But I take wrong turns anyway.
Just when I think I'm there, I'm three blocks
away from where I'm supposed to be.
Walk until blisters form in my GBX boots,
until my thighs rub themselves raw
from treading through the Financial District.

New York is throwing dirt in my face.
She wraps a Ziploc sandwich bag around my head.
She throws me to the ground in a pitch-black alleyway
& is kicking the shit out of me.
New York is raping me with a skyscraping strap-on.
I'm bleeding from the butt.
The doctor says I almost didn't make it.
I escaped with bruising & seventeen stitches in my rectum.

As the cute bald guy in the sexy black shirt
feeds me hospital food, he says, you have to watch yourself.
You can't go around saying you're gonna take a bite out of New York's ass.
She's extremely sensitive about that sort of thing.