The Senate Apartments
The Senate Apartments
—for Coleman Dowell
__________________
The Senate Apartments—Was an art deco dump Built in the early Forties At the end of the Thirties—When WPA architects Still needed a job
A swanky old wreck—Like the Civic Auditorium Streamline Moderne I bought the joint—Its curved glass block Corners appealed to me I had it remodeled—Back to its stylish pristine Nostalgic beauty I rented it out—To young college students Writers and artists
All around the neighborhood—A student ghetto of old Mansions turned rooming-houses The Senate Apartments—Art deco still had some class Compared to today I always wondered—What a cute epileptic Would be like to live with After the accident—He was the perfect spaz A cute invalid
He was lucky to survive—His car crash smashed His sports car to nothing He’d been a pretty boy—In my fraternity but now He was in love with death I had to coax him back—Beneath the sheets in bed My Lazarus boyfriend The luxury of imagining—Myself with a spastic lover My reward for nursing him
Like a homecoming—To boyhood with all its Smells and decay of youth Still goodlooking—Blasphemously callous He let me do him Paralyzed angel—Except for one minor thing Down between his legs I worshipped him—Assiduously like I wanted To do before the crash
In the penthouse above—I made up for lost time Calluses on my lips A beautiful spastic kid—Who wanted to die after His tragic accident I was obsequious—Finally he accepted my Generosity, murmuring okay I began to siphon off—His lifeblood with liquor Pills, dope, slowly, slowly
To think he was all mine—This guy who was engaged to Be married and breed Was it wrong of me—To take advantage of his Helpless spasticity? Hardly, my dear—I wanted what I—Couldn’t have back when We were freshman Who knows how long—He’d last with the brain-dead Party time frat boyz
Before self-hatred—Set in, watching him get Corrupted just like me His family, his girlfriend—All of them were for pulling The plug on my lover boy But I pulled him back—Back again into life and Didn’t tell them how I pulled and pulled—Until young Jonah popped Outta the Whale again
And it wasn’t artificial—Respiration either that Brought the love-child back Humiliation wasn’t mine—Down there between his legs Bringing him back to life And later on after—I got care-person custody He “came back” more & more I wasn’t bashful or shy—
His throes of epilepsy were Scandalous if they only knew I slowed him down—Restraining his almost constant Rerun of the car accident Halfway mourning to be dead—The other half of him becoming Imperceptibly alive again It lasted a year for him—His recovery with the help of My equally spastic lips
He’d been abandoned—But I wouldn’t let him as Long as he had a heart-throb Pretty soon he could sit up—In bed and eat Thai take-out And watch movies again I never did believe much—In tear-jerking unrequited love I’d always been into the real thing We drove, walked, ate—Looked at television, pretended It was Night of Living Dead
Dead emanations—Of stars, other lives circling His and mine around us Still-winged, wind borne—Sympathetic juices and organs In our daily living Death Such prolonged Thanatos—A prolonged stillness of Perpetual obituary silence
When monsoon weather—Set in with scudding clouds Overhead like a Sargasso Sea We looked at each other—Nodding that we’d already been There and done that Somehow we’d survived it—Thinking about his carnal Crawling internment The stink of youngmen—High-tided sperm smell Smell of teen brown sugar
Death’s postponed victory—Draining our life-juices and Sucking salt from the clay His eyes were portholes—He’d gone down with the Titanic And lived to talk about it Clifton Webb was a screamer—Even as the band played on Down to Davy’s Locker
Chthonic collaborations—Nature’s worming minutest Millimeter—Hasty scrutiny Clangorous earthiness—Milking the Tellurian Peepshow pathology
—for Coleman Dowell
__________________
The Senate Apartments—Was an art deco dump Built in the early Forties At the end of the Thirties—When WPA architects Still needed a job
A swanky old wreck—Like the Civic Auditorium Streamline Moderne I bought the joint—Its curved glass block Corners appealed to me I had it remodeled—Back to its stylish pristine Nostalgic beauty I rented it out—To young college students Writers and artists
All around the neighborhood—A student ghetto of old Mansions turned rooming-houses The Senate Apartments—Art deco still had some class Compared to today I always wondered—What a cute epileptic Would be like to live with After the accident—He was the perfect spaz A cute invalid
He was lucky to survive—His car crash smashed His sports car to nothing He’d been a pretty boy—In my fraternity but now He was in love with death I had to coax him back—Beneath the sheets in bed My Lazarus boyfriend The luxury of imagining—Myself with a spastic lover My reward for nursing him
Like a homecoming—To boyhood with all its Smells and decay of youth Still goodlooking—Blasphemously callous He let me do him Paralyzed angel—Except for one minor thing Down between his legs I worshipped him—Assiduously like I wanted To do before the crash
In the penthouse above—I made up for lost time Calluses on my lips A beautiful spastic kid—Who wanted to die after His tragic accident I was obsequious—Finally he accepted my Generosity, murmuring okay I began to siphon off—His lifeblood with liquor Pills, dope, slowly, slowly
To think he was all mine—This guy who was engaged to Be married and breed Was it wrong of me—To take advantage of his Helpless spasticity? Hardly, my dear—I wanted what I—Couldn’t have back when We were freshman Who knows how long—He’d last with the brain-dead Party time frat boyz
Before self-hatred—Set in, watching him get Corrupted just like me His family, his girlfriend—All of them were for pulling The plug on my lover boy But I pulled him back—Back again into life and Didn’t tell them how I pulled and pulled—Until young Jonah popped Outta the Whale again
And it wasn’t artificial—Respiration either that Brought the love-child back Humiliation wasn’t mine—Down there between his legs Bringing him back to life And later on after—I got care-person custody He “came back” more & more I wasn’t bashful or shy—
His throes of epilepsy were Scandalous if they only knew I slowed him down—Restraining his almost constant Rerun of the car accident Halfway mourning to be dead—The other half of him becoming Imperceptibly alive again It lasted a year for him—His recovery with the help of My equally spastic lips
He’d been abandoned—But I wouldn’t let him as Long as he had a heart-throb Pretty soon he could sit up—In bed and eat Thai take-out And watch movies again I never did believe much—In tear-jerking unrequited love I’d always been into the real thing We drove, walked, ate—Looked at television, pretended It was Night of Living Dead
Dead emanations—Of stars, other lives circling His and mine around us Still-winged, wind borne—Sympathetic juices and organs In our daily living Death Such prolonged Thanatos—A prolonged stillness of Perpetual obituary silence
When monsoon weather—Set in with scudding clouds Overhead like a Sargasso Sea We looked at each other—Nodding that we’d already been There and done that Somehow we’d survived it—Thinking about his carnal Crawling internment The stink of youngmen—High-tided sperm smell Smell of teen brown sugar
Death’s postponed victory—Draining our life-juices and Sucking salt from the clay His eyes were portholes—He’d gone down with the Titanic And lived to talk about it Clifton Webb was a screamer—Even as the band played on Down to Davy’s Locker
Chthonic collaborations—Nature’s worming minutest Millimeter—Hasty scrutiny Clangorous earthiness—Milking the Tellurian Peepshow pathology
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