DOWN ON THE AVENTINE
By Charlie Coleman
with the picnic blankets and glass pipes.
and the wreck when i saw the christopher street
of that second week, where were the split lips, i thought,
where were the indeterminate flows? you talk me up
until we’re both hopping to the subway. everything infinitive:
to slink (the candied ladder of avenue A), to listen (that evening
street singing out misplaced collars), to climb (the generation
of crumbling city walls over the rivers of spit).
roman SUBURA or sitting in the park and wanting you so bad.
lamplight and painted faces waiting for collapse
they said it was decadence or not enough sleep
or slow trains or the smiles woven into dark corners.
the same song in four clubs and i’m back on christopher
christopher christopher street it slides into idleness
licking shattered wax off the sidewalk
on the way to the next, by the ancient section
the truth is every poem is the street i live on
and every street here is better than i could write.
the light on the steel on winter mornings,
the divine panoramic of the night with all the things i could say:
brown boots and windows screaming in the bathroom
and the martyrs in the square selling cloth and
the gardens in april and polysyndeton and you so far away.
come home with me. we’ll take the express.
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About the Author
Charlie Coleman is a writer based in New York City studying English and philosophy at Columbia University. His work has previously been published in Quarto Magazine, ANGLES, and ZENIADA. They are passionate about new wave films, love letters, kitchen sink dramas, film photography, 60s music, and long walks around the city.