reg e gaines

Swirling Dervish Dance

streets are seedy

faces shady

line from the door

half way down to Avenue C

cat called Julio

coolin’ on a bar stool

fist full a cash

bickers with this

red-headed-dreaded white boy

‘ bout the $5.00 price of admission

I jump the line slide Julio ten

he cuts me this

“who the fuck do you think you are” look

keeps my change but lets me in

crowd is thick as the cigarette haze hanging overhead

Eddie Palmieri’s

Oyelo Te Que Coviene-Oyelo-Oyelo-Oyelo-O

blasts from the speakers

a white-haired Buddha like figure

seemingly robed in gold

grabs the hand of an Afro-Latina

as they breaks into a

swirling dervish dance

dominated by a two-step merengue

through the crowd

past a black & white framed photo

of Miguel “Mikey” Pinero

which hangs at the north end of the bar

not far from this blind cat

Professor Steve Canon

spewing psychotic criticisms

while spilling wine

over the already stained wood bar

as the pork pie hat wearing poetry MC

instructs the DJ to fade the music

then majestically introduces

the golden Buddha

whose name I now know is

Miquel Algarin…

reg e gaines is a two time Tony Award nominated playwright and Grammy Award nominated lyricist. He has published four books of poetry, is editor of the 2015 poetry anthology, A Year In Ink, scored the PBS documentary, Senior Year and has served as artistic director of the NYC Downtown Urban Arts Festival since 2007. Recent projects include, director of Connect The Lots, a musical theater summer camp in Camden, New Jersey in 2014, director/ creative writing workshop facilitator of Through The Looking Glass, Center Theater Group, Los Angeles California, 2014-2016, director of Lyricist Fellowship Lab, Teaching Firm of America Charter School, Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn, winter/spring 2017, Is Poetry Theater? workshop facilitator, Bowery Poetry Club, NYC 2018 and writer, director, producer, The 88, a new musical with music by Calvin Gaines, 2020.