June 22, 2008

Yesterday was Punk Island. About 20 or 30 punk bands played on Governors Island, to an audience of well-heeled women in summer frocks, fried-hair kids in leather, and aging punks in dirty t-shirts. Amongst the third group was one of my companions to the show. Me? I don't know. I have a terrible haircut but it ain't dyed any funny colors. And the other guy with us wasn't punk, but he knows some of the guys and girls in the scene from his activism; he prefers Led Zeppelin, but any sort of hard music is fine by him.

The first guy was excited to hear that Reagan Youth was playing. Yeah, well, they played...but it was only for 10 minutes. And it was a very good 10 minutes! The asshole park managers broke up the set due to time constraints and then sent us sweaty hordes on our way. They were the last act on the bill...the headliners.

July, they're doing a folk festival on the Island, too. I'm not exactly geeked.

She, at the back of the store,
gingerly pulling a Henry James from the shelf,
opening and closing it,
fingers testing the fold of the spine.

He, in the next aisle,
watching her over the low shelf of Westerns,
eyes following the paperback from hands to arm
to swell of white breast over red blouse.

She, three years later,
sitting out Harvard cocktail parties,
wondering when they stopped making men
like Ralph Waldo Emerson.

He, three years later,
still frequenting used bookstores,
still writing his phone number in
copies of Portrait of a Lady.