Russ Green
EXILE ON INHUMANE STREET

I stroll down Avenue A tahini
breezes dripping from the corner
of my mouth. Passing a flat screen
store window showing Bollywood
Bang Bang. Stopping for Italian
with lanyards of aniline in my
linguini. They say accents change
every fifty miles, then why is it the
wind changes every fifty seconds?
Is it geothermal or ocean energy?
Global warming scientists say stay
away from oceans and deserts.
What if I want to have your ocean
for dessert, feed it to the nine hundred
and fifty thousand homeless soldiers
in America? Invisible veterans.
I’m given rice advice. I’m pissed I
can’t make rice right and I’m amazed
at your maze of maize and how much
you make selling to high fructose corn
syrup factories. You’re a corn star baby!
I heard Peter The McCarthy King urged
the UN to declare Long Island a no falafel
zone. He wants to fly them to Jordan
in an extra falafel-ary rendition and torture
them with ketchup. I heard today a Jewish
family came home to Denmark in 1946
after being in exile in Sweden. After three
years the goose was still in the oven. After
twenty-five years I’m still hangin’ out on
these Lower East Side streets chasing 
the ghost of Ginsburg, howling at the 
International Space Station gliding toward
orbital sunrise wondering if the astronauts
gave a standing ovation as they passed the
soul of Johnny Cash in the cosmic heavens
high above New York City. Yeah, I saw that
space station once before from the top of my
Green Mountain meditation place. Just as I
was watching the bright light glide quickly
across the dark cosmos of the New England
sky I heard a rustle in the trail head trees 
behind me only to find a bloated old moose 
with stars in his eyes and branch mark stripes 
on his forehead wiping blood from his lips after
he just devoured my goose. 

      


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Russ Green is a graduate of Hofstra University and hosts and co-hosts readings on Long Island and New York City. His work has appeared in several anthologies and online publications. His favorite pastimes are searching for the perfect Belgian Ale and hiking in the mountains of 
Vermont