In Memoriam (A Trilogy and Epilogue for Harry Shapiro and the YMCA)
I.
Harry, I really didn’t know, nobody ever told me
as I stare Sodom in the eye;
boy we’re close-we’re so fucking close that
we can tickle King Kong’s balls, Harry;
Damn, that revolving fan in the ceiling
whirling clockwise but never faster
than the vapor that is us, Harry, you and I –
counter, clocked and unwise in our home;
Yes, we are home, Harry-in our cheesy little pocket
of well stitched yuppiedom
but you are released my friend
as they carry away poorly stitched patches
of what you were and
where you’ve been.
II.
I did not know, I did not know-
that fucking ceiling fan aggressively
attacks the smoke, but
where the fuck did the years go?
You take my greasy kid stuff and
defiantly comb it through your
reluctantly grey wannabe pompadour-
Harry, you handsome sonofabitch, you!
Fuck, where did the time go, musing
while puffing the coffin nails and sending
our epitaph into carcinogenic space;
Shit, no stray dogs in Yuppiedom, Harry
just us, as clandestine fumes cha cha
seductively between the twin whorehouses.
III.
It sucks, Harry; weren’t you a cook in Viet Nam?
– you can smell the wannabes and neverweres
(so full of shit) from across the river since they
always brag about how may gooks they’ve wasted;
but if you’d really been there,
I mean REALLY BEEN THERE
you wouldn’t talk about that shit as
the phony vet blows nicotine trumpets with
blazing tatoos that hurt my eyes;
But you can tell that he pulls his prick
and you’re not here to tell him ’cause
you’ve been released to those choppers
that bring holy hash and sacred shit-on-a-shingle;
they treated those cans like gold, like fucking gold,
I won’t pull your prick anymore, Harry…
Epilogue
They don’t announce this kind of shit;
whenever they find you dead in your room you’re
only a footnote and/or soup kitchen gossip but
I didn’t know since they don’t announce that shit;
May God grant us grace to be real, Harry
You’ve been released, Rest In Peace, my friend…
