/ Dan Memmolo / Beat Surrender /



POEMS AVAILABLE ON THE WEB


  • "Beat Surrender" - Melic Review
  • "Peace Over Power" - Lily
  • Excerpt from the chapbook, BEAT SURRENDER - Main Street Rag


    • POEM AVAILABLE RIGHT HERE


    Ending with a Line by a Band Called X

    I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but caring little for it, and much more for my imperfect garden.
    --Michel de Montaigne

    I want death to find me lying in a hammock
    tied between two parking meters (the timers,
    of course, about to announce my expiration).

    And like Montaigne (see epigraph above),
    I will not care about death and its approach,
    instead I will pay close attention to the city

    before me: my legs crossed at the ankles, a book
    opened and resting on my belly, my fingers in a weave
    and positioned behind my head. I will watch

    the traffic come to a halt at the intersection,
    smoke from the exhausts pushing into the sky,
    spiraling above a high-rise. I will inhale the aromas

    that float from the restaurants nearby:
    the garlic, the curry, the ginger, all tickling
    the hairs in my nose, all begging me to step down

    into the world again. And the boys on the corner
    will drum their plastic buckets, my heart trying
    to keep time with the beat they lay down. An old man

    who’s been alone too long, his clothes so thin
    they are on the verge of disappearing,
    will emerge and stand in front of the boys

    whose heads will bow as they work the sticks. This day
    will be different. With a windmill motion
    of his arm, this man will rise again

    and begin his dance. Wood slapping hard plastic,
    one of the boys will call out, the others will return
    the call, and the old man will snap his dirty fingers,

    tap his rotten shoes, the soles wagging
    like thirsty tongues, and as he shakes his filthy, stinking ass,
    his voice will whoop into the dusk of the city,

    a city that will stop all at once to watch him,
    a man they've never seen before, a man they've refused
    to look at, who dances for their salvation,

    whose arms will open wide as if to embrace them
    in one large grasp, whose lips will pucker
    with eyes shut and brow furrowed, as if to say,

    the world's a mess, it's in my kiss.

    (Originally published in Sycamore Review, Summer 1999)