Voyeur of New York’s street people,
Painting a history of sleeping corpses,
Bagel sellers and shirtless police officers,
Feeling out deaths heat, in a moments flash
Of gunshot, or tenement fire
On the lower east side
Call me Arthur, or Usher
Those other Felligs,
Well, I don’t remember those dopes,
With my police radio
Loaded and ready
I can work my artistry,
Before the body hits the floor
Why don’t you meet me tonight,
By Sammy’s on the Bowery?
We can swell and drift amongst
The richness of the drunks,
Make them masterpieces
Wee Gee, the famous,
This is the real me,
Mr dark room on the underground
King of Brooklyn, ghost of Queens
A lousy tenement dweller, with hypo for blood
And what did I become?
A coffee table legacy, a conversation piece
In a discerning apartment
A photobook blintz,
eat me up while I’m hot
because, like a dying day
these things will never come back again
Gavin Turner is a writer from the UK. His short stories and poems have been published with JAKE, Punk Noir magazine, Icebreakers lit, Voidspace and Roi faineant press. His first poetry collection The Round Journey was published in 2022 and his second book ‘A mouthful of space dust’ was released in 2023. You can find him @gpoems on twitter.