eulogy to Hilly

yeah, cbgb's opened its doors this past august to homeless folks otherwise clothed in corrugated cardboard cramped under the awning when shows ended for the night, 4 AM or so; droop-lids, mind-fucked, cotton mouth to the max, punkphiles who stuck it out yet again, going-going-going on the urgency of making history every show every night (nothing since or before or ever again) daintly step aside them, testing the concrete for no-see-em ieds. did they camp there to soak punk soul or was it just an accidental warm entryway?

where was patti when all her softshoeing fans exited on bowery?

ultimate fighting out back? ultimate scribbling on the pot?

wanted it so bad back then, out of suburban nuclear verge-of-disaster ordinariness, into contact with safe urban ruination-like-creative fire bombing contact, rubbing off others' filth.

caught off-guard, unwitting walk-on, passerby in smokey black and white improvisation for one of warhol's 472 screen tests: there she is, then, among the wannabee public intellectuals sparing for film-time memory, who all lucked-out famous by association, but too scrubbed and styled and cosmeticized to call home a recycled box abutting granite. or to play it.

words matter, when bodies pulverize, beneath windows peering out from an 1800 sq. ft rm w/vw.