THE WHOLE SHOT

Most, given the death we’ve all been given

before we die, die.

Greg didn’t, Greg wouldn’t, Greg ain’t.

He burned his being burned and being burned up

right in front of you,

up front,

in your face, he was a fighting little neighborhood ,

city-wide.

I never saw him sing, he never sang, copper,

O but he sang.

And guzzled and fixed and trashed and mashed.

Consumed. He was consumed by consuming,

conpetition’s fool

from Maldoror through every lowdown kind of

kinahoor clear down to his own stretch marks

in Dannemora.

I went to see him in the hospital once

when his head , 3 times its size, some blood

he’d dissed in the drunk-tank had kicked in.

Which was after he’d once right-crossed me

for no good reason, like my best friend the

Calabrese kid in my neighborhood in The Bronx.

Which was before a bull-dyke once decked him

For dissing lesbians, and for being monstrously cute,

humiliating in public to women and men alike,

a self-styled " rotten fuck" who never cleaned up,

a nice guy who said, "No more nice guy",

all brag and loudmouth blow,

fame up his ass

"I’m Gregory Corso"

like at a horseshow,

provoking, stirring shit,

yelling, "Hey, Ginzy!" up to Shig’s place on Grant St.

when Allen was visiting, for some dough.

Or: "Hey, Jackie, where’s Neeli? He took

Max for a walk…"

In this bar or that, running with this or that mug,

that chick or this,

toking in an alley or back in the john,

or cross-legged serious in the Caffe Trieste

reading the Chronicle or The Times

mixing it up with a mouth in a gallop

Llike Billy Hallop

with twinkle and charm out of hell,

he was one of a kind

of a devil character,

so you might never have known

he could precision an image

to its finest fain.

turn a phrase and make it sit in

with a combo of sounds

that unearthed a flagrant poesy

from ancient undergrounds,

write from a spring

without himself in it

and make the running diamonds

"the whole ball game"

or "the stiff arm of Cuba"

more than just sport,

"the whole shot"

in the senses that toppled

lying news reports,

taking one’s breath away

and leaving a real agape suddenly

sprouting daisies in your empty spaces,

the way it is when you’re met

by a pair of eyes on the street

above a mouth that might say anything,

above a body that might do anything,

yet those eyes in a slow, smiling

recognition rise and wink:

"Hey you, human bean, you Poet,

You synechdochal yokel of All,

Nothing’s concealed,

Nothing’s hid.

Cross my heart and hope to live."

The Kid is dead.

Long Live the Kid!