open city 23

Open City #23 – Prose by Poets

Table of Contents

All God’s Children Need Radios

Dream of My father

Nature Poem, Inc.

Mussle

At the Co-op

Beautiful Jazz

I Have About a Billion Friends

1 The Man in the Twelve Thousand Rooms

1 From Day to Day

5 Guinea Golden

5 Late Night Footsteps on the Staircase

11 Talking to Strangers

11 I Used to Be Snow White

25 Bricolage and Blood

25 To Halve and to Hole

31 The Life of a Stone

43 Subterfuge

45 A Sheep Is a Gift

45 ,”06/17/2004

45 ,”06/18/2004

57 Welcome to the Year of the Monkey

73 Earth

79 Giving Notice

81 A Short Skirt on Broadway

81 Add One

81 Both Square and Round

81 The Necklace

89 Arizona II

95 Another Old Mariachi

97 From Nightlife

97 Black-Capped Chickadee Trapped in the Feeder

111 Seedbed

111 Perpetuation

115 First Dossier/ Welcome Tour

125 A Little Rock Memoir, Mostly About Other Things

125 No Room But Mine, No Heat But Yours

135 Little Gingko

135 Summer Night Poem 1

135 Summer Night Poem 5

139 Our Terrible Belief

139 Sufficient Time

139 Reality

139 Decision

139 Dust and Flowers

139 The Arms of Half

139 Fall of Man [Continued]

157 Johnny Stinkbait Bears His Soul

173 The Taking of the Government Center, 1996-2006

173 A System of Belts and Wheels and Mirrors

189 My First Fairy Tale

195 Fractured Fairy Tale

195 Wolf Soup

209 Where God is Glad

209 Against Zoning

217 College

217 Wedding Vow

221 The Cookies of Fortune

223 Auction

225 The Beginners

225 Only Rhubarb

225 Who Can I Ask for an Honest Assessment?

239 Literary Agency

239 My Daughter

239 The Reductions