“She’s a devil with a little bit of angel dust.”
Leaving the safety of art
school for the uncertainty
of being an artist you
photographed the detritus
along the Williamsburg
Bridge:
the empty syringes &
burned spoons to cook heroin
at the Manhattan entrance
the empty flasks of vodka
& Bourbon before the exit
to Brooklyn
And on the rusting metal
in between:
a wilting wedding bouquet
that you rescued and vased
in an empty wine bottle on
the fire escape where you
were living “for now” in
the East Village and where
—rust
can sometimes blossom
*
Kenneth DiMaggio proudly grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, once known as “The Hardware Capital of the World.” As he notes: “It was a great town to grow up in. In a time when you could ride a bike without a helmet, and there was always a phone booth to crank call someone without being traced.” His heroes are Andy Warhol, St. Joan of Arc, Arthur Rimbaud, and Lucia Carpino, his maternal Sicilian grandmother who was also a Strega, i.e., a witch. He recently had a poem published in Illuminations. He is an avid fan of the NHL-hockey team, The New Jersey Devils.
