For Carl Solomon

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
     starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking 
     for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
     connection to the starry dynamo in the

crowded Monday subway its       mindlessness botanical     
you take the first seat claim it        for your age your figural       
effaced your t-shirt smelling        already like somebody

else’s sweat a toddler is       crashing against your leg his     
mom gives him a sucker he       hasn

A man walks into a 
museum in Paris, the Museum
of Natural History, to saw
 
a tusk off an elephant-
skeleton centuries-older than  
he’ll ever be, becoming

in those early morning hours  
part of a derelict and
inglorious human history,
 
while swallows darn