Coney Island of the Mind, (Stanza II), 1998
Etching, letterpress, 22 x 15 inches

The Steeplechase from Coney Island seemed a worthy stand-in for the absurd world Ferlinghetti sees before him.

From Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The poet's eye obscenely seeing
sees the suface of the round world
          with its drunk rooftops
          and wooden oiseaux on clotheslines
          and its clay males and females
          with hot legs and rosebud breasts
          in rollaway beds
and its trees full of mysteries
and its Sundays parks and speechless statues
and its America
          with its ghost towns and empty Ellis Islands
and its surrealist landscape of
                     mindless prairies
                     supermarket suburbs
                     steamheated cemeteries
                     and prostering cathedrals
a kissproof world of plastic and toiletseats tapax and taxis
  drugged store cowboys and las vegas virgins
  disowned indians and cinemad matrons
  unroman sentors and conscientious non-objectors
and all the other fatal shorn-up fragments
of the immigrant's dream come too true
  and mislaid
          among the sunbathers

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