TURBINE | KAPOHAU

     ‘The city of right angles and tough, damaged people.’ Pete Hamill

QF 2. QF stands for Qantas Flight but you
didn’t get that so you’re not here and here’s
New York the bus driver’s crazy, man, but
a woman next to me gave me chewing gum
I wasn’t expecting people in this tall city to be nice
I come from a town of 3.5 million and
not
everyone’s
nice

this city is obnoxious she’s sitting on a park
bench in Greenwich Village where people walk toy
dogs and eat pancakes with banana on the side
it’s so brutal, so many people the best place for
finance the best for arts entertainment central 
don’t you
think 
that’s
obnoxious?

I don’t know what lox is. I know what a bagel is
I know that sesame seeds are small and white but
when they fall off the bagel the bagel still tastes like
sesame I know I walk around with you indented on
my surfaces 
and
it’s
Spring

a New York party at the Rockefeller and Jeff
Koons’ dog is on guard with flower eyes
it’s the U2 bassist it’s Britney Spears there’s
Madonna and I’ve drunk long long island iced
teas the glass taxi driver says don’t let her be
sick but I prefer to sit in the raining gutter in
my 
silver
shoes

exploring a Jewish supermarket I’m walking in Harlem the only
blonde person and people are selling whole contents of houses on 
the sidewalk in four cornered blankets ready to run and I don’t
believe what I see in the movies because I’m a long
walk
from
home

we eat a lot of pizza we drink shit bottomless coffee but you
don’t know any better and you tip for me because I don’t know
any better you say I’ve written a play, do you want to read it? 
but this place is a stage set anyway and our dialogue is trying to
cover too much of the map no, maybe some other time and I exit 
left because I don’t have any other
lines 
for
now

I can’t get a ticket for Wall Street I can’t count right the streets to the
Guggenheim I go to red MOMA I can’t think what I’m supposed to 
think looking at art I go to an exhibition at the Noho gallery in
Soho and a woman dying of cancer shows me photos by other women
dying of cancer. I look at them and see
the
other
side

at The Baggot Inn a man sings Purple Rain we go another night 
and he sings it again he wears black rimmed glasses and a white
t–shirt I only want to see you dancing in
the
purple
rain

I could buy a lavender wig 
some gothic clothes a 
leather-laced bodice 
I could be someone else
Girl the gay boy says your 
eyes are so intense it’s the 
alcohol I say, the green alcohol in my
impromptu
blues
eyes

underground in an old speakeasy called
the Decibel Snake Bar we eat lotus roots it’s 
not like before 
nothing
is 
forbidden

an Indian restaurant ceiling is all lit
up chillies our cutlery glows red in 
Chinatown they’re selling dried pigs’ 
snouts under coloured lanterns no 
signs make sense except graffiti ‘Monocultures 
dye out’ over a picture of bleach I’m in the 
mess of New York what am I
supposed
to
say?

Some lights here go to the very top of buildings it’s hot
cream cheese is melting fifth avenue makes me wealth sick
unwanted perfume beats on my wrists there are no
women on the N Train after nine at night there’s me
I’m 
on
it

Honey what colour do you call your hair? Honey you’re so
pretty you wanna come home wid me gorgeous? Someone
hassles for money hassles and waits and hassles and only 
goes away when we speak in another language hey baby hey
sweet thing hey baby pretty lady, a homeless man says, I 
don’t want to disturb you folks but could you spare a sandwich or
piece
of
fruit?

We sail past the statue of liberty on an overcast day you wear 
a tie you say sorry a lot of immigrant men with black briefcases and
racks of watches old men in parks play serious chess we walk over
Brooklyn bridge but can’t see through the fog back to where we came
the polaroids don’t develop but I promise
I
was
smiling

sitting and watching buskers audition for a living in the subway 
a one-man flamenco dancer with a stuffed doll a classical trio 
Elvis
John
Diana

at Cabaret, Studio 54 I have a perfect accent and a lot of 
people love me for it we clap loudly but leave early why 
stay for the end when there is
always
something
more?

It’s easy to get around uptown or downtown Times 
Square billboards are bigger than my periphery Coke 
The Gap Starbucks on every corner Saint Marks and 
a hand touches my arm in the all night bookstore