THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

I miss the refuge of my local café where my writer fingers tap like cotton club hoofers stomping to the savoy As natives zombie in, toddlers claim their God-given right to a fresh-baked croissant,  and I get to disappear  Ralph Ellison style. I miss  The gymnastic landing Of a passionate kiss The binding clause of attraction A body gone limp as a cat defeated by pleasure floating in a puddle of the afternoon sun I miss The close proximity of Renoir The baton induced entrance of an overture The invocations of the sermons at the Vanguard I miss the casual wander behind the ghost trail of fruit-scented vapes The rapture of traffic That cabs that wail like  Calloway Fueled by the octane power of the hi de ho. I miss The buskers The card sharks The lunatics The West Side Story rumble of the subway The cashmere scarfs And pictures of John Lennon On sale along aboard the hustling real estate of  Manhattan bridge tables And I miss   The million and one times that I have fallen in love  with a

On Monday Which was like Any other Monday Seven children Woke up Beneath one roof In seven different beds Which just minutes before Were a flotilla of unmoored boats Cast out to the Sea of Dreams Which is why When they woke up They still felt like they were floating. With half-mast eyes They plodded barefoot  to  Chilly tiled bathrooms And performed their rituals With holy water and Toothpaste  Empowered by the invulnerability of childhood As they conjured up images  Of Spider-Man and dreaded tests The new Justin Bieber song And even that cute boy Or a cute girl Who just might love them as much As they secretly loved them. Then they buttoned And zipped themselves into outfits And tied laces Like veteran Boy Scouts As bacon sizzled like a late night summer shower  And eggs hummed like a warming up chorus As mommy coffee bubbled with promise And cereal boxes stood like Patriotic sentries On the table where Just the night before Everyone laughed And sang While they rooted for their favori

Despite their official status ghosts do not retire or sign up for Medicare they are alive and well. The bigger than life ones  live with vivacity  in the cemeteries of novels and the tombs of movie palaces where at this very moment  Jean Harlow is slinking like a panther in a dangerous negligee and Jimmy Stewart is stammering his way  into the heart of a woman who has pulverized his bashful vocabulary. The city ones still ride trolley cars drive horse-drawn lunch wagons dunk sinkers in a cup of Automat joe sell the Herald Tribune for a nickel on  street corners sip in speakeasies  And row barefoot in Central Park  twirling parasols  while soliloquies  are being offered by The Barrymores beneath the watchful eye of chandeliers.  The ones who are closest to me, my once-upon-a-time  conga line of relatives who used to sashay from cars on a Saturday night swinging pink cake boxes from Ebinger’s  like church incense who were picked off one by one by unfiltered cigarettes and the strangulati

 DESPITE THE PROMISE OF THE GLOAMING Written By David Steve Simon I don’t fear the apocalypse I fear that my daydreams  Will never burst open Like the newborn mouths of sun nursing violets On the very first day of spring. I don’t fear darkness  I fear I will never again have A drowsy pair of feet Search for mine In the feathery valley of  The fallen night time duvet. I don’t fear storms I fear being battered by loneliness I don’t fear the truth I fear the person who will expose me to it I don’t fear aging I fear its consequences. Which will turn me From a hard pelting rain Into a fine mist Which will be forgotten Despite the promise of the gloaming Far, far away from  The never ending fields of violets.