affinity

Part I

                (1)

     
     on my way
     to the golden irs building
     on the corner of Market and another street
     i pass by a Black
     artist sitting on the sidewalk
     in the wall's warm shadow
     that comes
     from the roof
     a narrow
     patch

     i change my plans
     make sure to go back from the golden
     irs building the same way south
     into Market and east into
     San Fernando
     
     
                (2)

      i won't buy any
      but will create
      an impression like
      something's happening here

     enlivened eyes smile an instant:
     so that people will gather

     for an American he has little patience
     when i am lost in the flares of his expressions

     i like his impatience breaking through starvation
     no easy treatment for the english challenged

     
                (3)

     for one on the left
     he wants eight dollars
     a painting of flowers
     in a transparent vase you can see
     the mirror of the water in the vase he paid
     two dollars to get
     this one from a color copying machine technology
     is that good i would never guess
     his original he displays close to him is still better

     he can add old english calligraphy to his graphics
     leaves hanging from letters
     i am an artist
     i can do my own poems he says
     and he smoothly transforms his statement into improvising
     scanning flowing rhyming phrases

     he knows about the internet
     
     
     
                (4)

     
     if someone put a pistol to your head
     here Michael extends his arm and hand toward my face
     you'd improvise too
      that's how i feel when i do
      a pistol inside my head
     if it were a real one
     you'd do better

     we laugh
     when the situation demands it indeed
     be it Russia or here
     suddenly i do find words
     this
     reminds me of a small story of what happened
     at the university of michigan
     in 1969 when i came to America

     everything reminds me of everything

     
     
                (5)

     i already gave Michael a dollar
     he let my green butterfly into his styrofoam white flower
     gloomy's the word he agreed
     in the midst of the bright San Jose summer

     no athlete walking by
     no woman
     no couple with children
     came thru
     white flower attracts no more
      when you get rich i told him
      you will buy me a coffee or a beer
     you may donate twenty he jokes
     and when i get rich
     i'll give you forty

     i appreciate your dollar
     he adds

     
     
                (6)

     put this price tag under that picture (!)
     no put it on the sidewalk under the middle!
      ok Mike i am slow i am willing trying
      i play
     i don't want to be patient Mike says and plays
     along gives me a drill sergeant routine... he
     should write this poem--the sidewalk
     is his and mine but english
     only his and if
     i knew
     how to envy
     i would
     
     
     
                (7)

     i may stand three quarters
     of the width of the sidewalk away
     from Mike pedestrians
     go around me anyway
     never
     between me and Mike

     i feel that i exhausted my welcome

     no stop tell me your michigan story
     
     
     
                (8)
     
     
     Black and other students revolted shouted
      o pen-it up or shut-it down!
      o pen-it up or shut-it down!
     i followed a group of Blacks
     down a corridor they banged
     iron pipes against radiators
     opened classroom doors
     disrupted classes
      Mike nods what were you at the university?
     a teacher a professor
      of what?
     of mathematics

     no circus shambo-mambo from Michael
     no "i am too stupid for math"
     simply straight respect

     when i told him earlier that my name is [vwodek]
     he repeated it didn't ask me may i
     call you walt

     i continue
     more and more Blacks joined the group
     now a crowd in one class
     a White guy punched and kicked a Black

     Blacks closed and raised their fists
     you could smell the blood in the air about
     to be spilled

      and that's when you took off and disappeared from the scene
      Mike helps

     i smile i should have left but i felt
     responsible...
      i read in newspapers Mike says
      you jumped up like a superman
      then descended on them and they saw
      that you are a professor...
     do i look to you like a professor?
      yes you do
     i shake my head: and i was younger then
      Mike insists
     no i had to do something
     i addressed them in a friendly way
     as i would address students nearly my age in Poland
     i said

     BOYS!

      this time Mike is shocked
      especially in those days he says

     Blacks had surrounded me had converged
     from everywhere huge guys i show
     Michael the size of theirs biceps
     we are NOT boys they said
     the staircase and the corridor and their
     solemn faces darkened

     ok my english is poor but...
     slowly the smile percolates to their eyes
     ...but blah blah blah problem no more
     
     
     
                (9)
     
     
     that was as close as you ever got to death
     Michael says
      i can't match Mike as an artist
      i spoil his moment of celebrating Blacks
      i mention warsaw streetcars and a childhood friend
      who lost two legs and one arm and... spare me
     the details Michael requests it's hot
     the shade is nearly useless Mike
     doesn't do too well and i
     am not of any help i extend
     my hand we shake straight not the "cool"
     way straight like our whole conversation
     free from slang
     but for my introductory
     hey man

Part II

                (10)

     at the moment of parting i know:
     now
     i'll go
     south then east
     to the Jack in the Box nearby
     on the corner of San Carlos and Fourth
     where the homeless
     smell bad
     and play good chess
     slow or blitz
     i am game
     
     
     
                (11)

     i didn't cross San Fernando yet
     Michael's long bones lying on the sidewalk
     thirty feet behind my back
     and i changed my plans again
     i stop short of the Jack instead
     at the MacDonald's i buy
     two large drinks and a twenty piece
     chicken MacNugget split 10+10 into two
     packages $7.23 i'll celebrate
     with Mike

                (12)
     
     
     i have thrown
     the irs forms folded
     stuffed into an envelope
     into a special 3 foot by 3 foot
     box the height of a tall child
     in the golden irs building

     from home
     i brought that envelope with the forms inside
     in a blue plastic bag
     nicer than a greenish yellowish brownish plastic bag
     from Lucky's--a local grocery chain store

     a habit
     no more sport bags for me
     i carry everything in plastic
     like everybody else around here
     well everybody that...
     and they use the large black ones
     anyway
     i extract the blue bag from my pocket
     at MacDonald's

     
     
                (13)
     
     
     i am back
     north across the street i see
     another transient next to Michael
     i change the direction
     cross the First east away from Mike
     and only then i cross San Fernando unseen i watch
     the two of them from my corner from distance
     the drinks spilled in my bag
     oooh cold but the other bum will not
     leave now no he moved to sit down
     next to Mike i see
     the bum's can
     and his clean bright white shirt
     Mike could also get new clothes from a local church

     i am leaving for my apartment
     one handle of the bag breaks
     and this blue plastic was not meant to get wet
awkward

END

wlodzimierz holsztynski ©
1995-august