Monday, February 25, 2013

Gregory Corso's Hands


 I’m probably mis-quoting him,  but there
are a couple of  lines in a poem of his that
go like:  “the old gangster looks out of the
apartment window/ his gun rusting in his
arthritic  hands.”

I could do a series of poems just about
the word:   hand/s…. powerful,  simple
word . In the book, “Day Of The Locust
by Nathanel West,  he gives  the main
character  over sized  hands that, at  times,
try to communicate for him.

“Pete’s hands tried to grab lamp posts,
fences, stop signs, anything to slow him
from where he was going.”

“What you been up to tonight,  Snarky? 
You were seen in a
neighborhood that had some problems.”

“Nuthin’, Sergeant,   honest….I was just
collectin’ cans…I heard some scufflin’
goin’on, but that was at least a block away.”

“Let me see your hands.”

Snarky’s hands would have been
complimented by the  word ‘filthy’. 
They looked like they could easily be
mistaken for garbage them selves. 

“Well….looky here….flecks of
turquoise paint….a body
was found next to a car that was this….
rather unique color.” They put Snarky’s
hands in locked plastic bags as evidence

                                ****

Sheriff Baltimore was  an amazing
judge of character.   But he could
only do it with men,  usually, and it
wasn’t  the wa y they looked him in
the eye,  it was the handshake,
not just the firmness of the grip, 
it was the temperature  and moistness
of the hands themselves…whether  or not
he could sense in them that they’d worked….
and he could tell if they’d been laborers or
mechanics,  plumbers or  watchmakers.
And he could know if they’d been honest
or liars…good men who made honest mistakes, 
or bad men who needed to be  controlled.

                                   ****

I can see Gregory Corso’s hands passing me
a pint of bourbon in a paper bag… banging a
typewriter  or a girl with  equal  surreal
Sicilian glee….living New York when it wasn’t
that easy but everything was happening culturally
at the same time, which happened sometimes in the
world,  particularly in the 20th century
when we,  as a species, were learning to self-evolve .














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