Bloodletting

Boom and blare
conspire to barge in –
loot the mind –

what to do: resist? –
or let it take exactly
what it finds? –

me, sitting in
the grinding
meaty fist of this

pumped bumping day –
across the way from
seven drums’ undoing

of a large East Village
park: palms flay,
slap, bang the drums’

tight skins –
loud atavistic lark –
proto-shamanistic spins –

a celebration
of the need for festival –
relieved by having one.

So what? The city
makes my psyche
seethe and bleed a bit:

hardly a surprise.
Blood-letting is
her daily exercise.

.