David Trinidad

My Appearances in Other People’s Dreams

I was telling Shanna Compton

about seeing a couple bowling naked

and we laughed and laughed.

*

I called Elaine Equi “Mrs. Howl.”

*

Alyssa ran across a room to give

me a hug.  My torso and head were

encapsulated in glass filled with

water and light pink blooms (not

roses) so she just hugged the glass.

“It seemed perfect in a lot of ways.”

*

Nicole Wilson was walking down

the street and we crossed paths.

“I was so happy to see you!”

*

Michael Robins: “You missed

a train in my dream last night.

You, me, and someone else (no

idea of their identity) were in

Europe, I think.  We could see

you shrinking in the distance

of the platform, and we some-

how knew it unlikely you’d

catch the next train.”

*

Lynn Crosbie: “I dreamed you

had an eccentric, sexy boyfriend.

He was a visual artist.  I never

have dreams so take heed!”

*

Camille Guthrie was picking out

a present for me: “I found a pink

bag (sort of a fanny pack, but not)

with a teen Olivia Newton-John

on it, but I worried: Does David

even like Olivia Newton-John?”

*

Elaine: “I forgot to tell you I had

a dream where you drove us across

the ocean (Pacific?) and we were

chatting and ignoring holograms

of sea monsters and burning ships.

It was like a Disney Odyssey.”

Poem

Last night in workshop, Ankita mentioned

the fiction writer Mary Gaitskill in her charming

anti-response to my write-about-an-object (à la

Borges’ “The Dagger”) prompt, and I ended up

telling her and the class (smaller and more intimate

than usual, as four students were absent) an anecdote

about how, in the early nineties, I went to one of

Brett Easton Ellis’ legendary New Year’s Eve parties

with my partner Ira, and Mary and her boy toy,

a recent Columbia graduate who was tall and cute

(but obnoxious—he wouldn’t stop yammering)

and who would soon become the fiction editor of

Open City magazine.  “It wasn’t as glamorous

as you may think,” I said.  “Ellis’ loft was so packed

you could barely move.  Ira, Mary, and Boy Toy

dove right in, were swallowed by the crowd, while I

stayed outside in the hall and had an anxiety attack.

As much as I’ve written about my years in New York,

I’ve never put that in a poem.”  “Oh but you must,”

said Ankita, who after class asked charmingly,

with starstruck breathlessness, if I’d ever known

Kathy Acker.  “Yes,” I told her, “I have a poem

about her.”  But back to this one, which is about

(I think) the night I came face to face with, but didn’t

enter, the mouth of the dragon.  I remember that when

Ira and Mary—boy toy in tow, yammering away—

finally emerged from that frightening mob and

the four of us crammed into the back of a cab, it was

just beginning to snow.  Snow on New Year’s Day—

that’s the magic of New York.  Disappointing as

my years there were, stuck on an island full of

ruthless egotists (not Mary, she was an odd woman

but always nice to me, but there was one guy, who

wrote for Artforum, at a party on a rooftop in Chelsea,

who was particularly insufferable, but that’s another

poem, perhaps, and I’m trying to cram this one onto

one page, and see that I’m about to fail), I can still

get a breathless “I do this, I do that” poem out of it.

All we need is for Frank O’Hara to swish by trailing

a cloud of cigarette smoke, his lunch hour almost over,

Pierre Reverdy in his pocket.  I’m gay, so I can say swish.

April 6, 2023

Hotel Simic

At the edge of a village

Bloodied by the setting sun,

A dive with dim lights

And middle-aged waitress.

The kisses she blows to us

Are as cold as prison walls.

Here then are the small

Beads of rain rapping

Against the windowpane

The day your grandmother

Died.  To pass the time, I

Played a teentsy fiddle

Using one of my love’s long

Black eyelashes as a bow.

My future is my past,

The scratchy record sang.

Till the clock coughed up

Its first drop of blood.

A hundred horror films

Are crammed in my head.

The undeveloped film

Of the few clear moments

Of our blurred lives.  The

Fleeting moments know

No care, as they go around

Collecting memories that

Do not belong to them.

That’s what the leaves are

All upset about tonight.

Pink Filmography

      for Elaine Equi

The Pink Panther

Strike Me Pink

Pink Flamingos

Pretty in Pink

Ride the Pink Horse

The Return of the Pink Panther

The Pink Jungle

Pinky

The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown

Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii

Heller in Pink Tights

The Pink Panther Strikes Again