"newyorkcity fantasy" by Frank (phrank x) Harris

this is what i told raven.

raven dear the time has come. stuff your socks and your toothbrush in a plastic bag, bring some money, grab your guitar and we’re off. we’re going to find our way to newyorkcity. i don’t know what we’ll find but we’ll find something and our heads are too dizzy from whipped cream orgasms to settle for less so raven my love, it’s just about time. we’ll find ourselves an adventure and keep it all to ourselves. i know you haven’t written a song since she left and i’m too happy for comfort so lets go! you know there’s something new waiting for you there.

this is what I hoped would happen. (number 1)

we climb on the bus and there’s a man sitting next to us. he tells us he was the love child of francesca lia block and a faery who lost his wings in a fight. he shows us poems he wrote on magickal paper with magickal ink and he tells us he once fell in love with a dragon who hid in an alley in manhattan. he says he ran away from his mother (she said he was worthless) and joined a band of american gypsies who dance in the streets for money. he says newyorkcity is such a different place once you get new eyes. you fall asleep listening and i think that with his long black dirty hair and his holey jeans he’s the kind of person you know is an angel but doesn’t want anyone to know that he is. he smiles and tells you that the president is probably an alien conspiracy. he says there are places in the world where you can buy magick pens that write palindromes ten words long if you just sing for them. ‘so much of what you hear is your mind playing with you’ he says, ‘and the world spends so much time telling you about how it’s the other way around.’ when we arrive in newyorkcity the man invites us to stay with his gypsies that dance for money. you look at him like you think his eyes are in your jeans. i accept his invitation for us. i introduce us. his name, he says, he’s forgotten, but if we’d like we can call him dante. we walk to the outskirts of town where his gypsies are camped. their tents take up a block of abandoned sidewalk and it’s raining. it’s beautiful. their tents smell like indian tea and marijuana smoke. they give us cots and blankets for the night, but it’s newyorkcity so we don’t stay long. we find a coffeehouse and inside a woman is reading poetry. her tongue looks like it’s flickering and you can’t get your eyes off her. i know, raven my sweet, that you think she’s beautiful because i’m you and you’re me. when we finally get back to the tent that night i can hear your pen scratching on the paper for the first time in months.

(number 2)

this time we don’t even make it to the bus. an old van pulls up and zither music is pouring out the window like dry ice and vibrating around our feet. i look at you and mouth ‘this is it’ and a woman asks if we could use a ride. i say ‘only if you’re taking us to newyorkcity’ and she tells us with an enigmatic smile that her schedule is free for just such a thing so we climb in. she says her name is mary and she’s an existentialist. the walls of her van are plastered with prints of the sistine chapel ceiling, the ceiling is covered in zen sayings made out of scrabble pieces, and the floor of the van is a huge futon and blanket. she says she’s never been to newyorkcity but she knows an old man there. ‘he used to be young’ is all she says about him. in south pennsylvania she picks up a pair of asian girls with rasta hats making a pilgrimage to john lennon’s grave. and you fall in love with one of them, raven, because she has eyes just like she does. the girl asks who is she and all of a sudden you’re quiet, raven darling. and like it’s to tease you her eyes grow big and round when the first glimpse of newyorkcity appears on the blurred horizon. they asked if we had lovers back home, i said i did and you said that if you knew where she was you might, and we said that we loved each other in the sense that we were both each others persona. they said they were twins but separated before birth so they weren’t related and it was okay for them to be lovers. the van stops in front of what mary says is the old mans house. we give our goodbyes to her and the two girls, and go off in search of a place to sleep. in the morning you’re gone, with a note saying you’re going off to find john lennon’s grave.