JOHN GODFREY'S THE CITY KEEPS

John Godfrey has been a dear friend since the 1970s when he first became known on the downtown New York poetry scene as "a poet's poet," highly admired and loved by all who encountered him or his work. His book THE CITY KEEPS, Selected and New Poems 1966-2014, should be required reading for anyone who appreciates uniquely evocative poetry.

He will be reading, with Barbara Henning and Cliff Hyman, at the Zinc Bar on West Third Street in Manhattan this Sunday at 4:30PM. As they used to say back in the day, Be there or be square.

DOWNY SKIN

Compared to
my life
my life
is long

Accomplish
a tenuous
fixation
Memory

Anything
anyone
can, will, or fails
to intimate

It is older
I knew it
long ago
Her downy skin

ASTRAL ROULETTE

Two quick strides! There!
Bus smokes past my heels, a
slingshot to the Battery, which
is down. I catch my breath
and Sing Wu a song, past those
lights, and their miniature bar
in the window. Ahead of me
in the sky stars are scrambling
from constellation to constellation
shaped as numbers 31 and 9:15
I always believe what's in
the sky at night, O Spanish moon!
And my heart always follows
that brave and unrefined intelligence