Medleys for Crandall

by Charles Plymell

Sorry I was strung out on Cosanyl
and didn’t make it to your wedding
as best man, Wichita in the ’50s
but I did drive with you in muffler
dragging Chevy to Santa Fe Opera
to hear you sing Ballad of Baby Doe
and Women of Trachis (Stravinsky)

We stayed in your loft on the Bowery
two families didn’t seem crowded
the Bums burned their barrel fires
to keep warm, pimps in Cadillacs
and latest trend in dress & jewels.

City was a crowded collage pushing
boundaries on Lexington Avenue
cut out my face and put in you
where sleeps the self I can’t escape
carried in wind of blind night of
neon in Church of the Unnoticed.

Bags of hope ended the ’70s with
dump truck driving along the Bowery
picking up bodies to dump in Potters field,
Punks appeared at CBGB’s to usher
the ’80s into cocaine and derivatives
bringing out more criminality of racial
consciousness of shooters and judges.
Buffalo shot for sport, now the humans.