Colfax Avenue

(This was dedicated to Colfax, or 15^th Avenue, which runs from the westernmost to the easternmost extremes of Denver, taking one through the oldest and best representative neighborhoods of the city, including its famed stadium and all the federal institutions which are becoming to a State capital. At least this was still so in the summer of 1983 or thereabouts, when I wrote this after a late restaurant shift on a big laid-out napkin (it was published that week in “Westword“). Colfax was named after a member of Lincoln's cabinet, if I'm not mistaken – and what if I am. The movement back then - my time, not Lincoln's - of Denver's “upward mobility“ to the fresher grasses of its growing southern suburbia to escape the inner city, was what moved me to write this loving tribute to the organic stretch of Denverana with which I'd grown up. That, and a 90-page poem once read to me just describing Coney Island, also the lovely verse of Walt Whitman. This is all really history now.)

ODE TO THE IDES OF DENVER

(and with respect to the memory of Walt Whitman)

Colfax, queen of the city, I fathom thee not;

Named for a politician, 'tis mete

that you should be the longest running street -

Your arm extends to the east! to the west!

(pray be generous to travelers) . . .

    It 'compasses the very breadth of our

    native state, our Colorado!

Yea tho' I search the ebbing sun on a summer eve

I cannot span or measure your range;

Your range is the Rocky Mountains,

O road more ancient than Rhodes – in spirit at least!

Yea tho' I search by that fading orb your bounds,

knowing that you lead touring souls

to Golden flowing streams of light beer,

that Capitol of Coloradan hopps

which lies past my eye's scope -

I am too intoxicated to enter there, too intoxicated just now

with the length of your pavement -

    Greasy white lines, yellow lines, double lines and

    concrete medians are your adornments -

Slipping deftly under I-25 and reappearing

as the great boulevard that thou art -

urbane and familiar.

From Hooker at 3200 block-west

to the „other hookers“ toward the east

you are multi-employed indifferently

     as a crossways of many lives

     and as many ways of life – yet

     still and always,

                                a street.

The workaday shoe-leather

of bearded bespeckled and believing Jews weathered

your surface upon many a Sabbath.

Tacos have since filled the air with spicy fragrance

mixed with pungeant Szechuan ducks on-the-run,

and the fumes of so many exhaust pipes, trailing

as cattle once did,

           between scores of liquor stops, second-hand shops

           seven-elevens, delicatessens,

           White Spots, Burger Kings and more billboards,

and the gritty soil of honest toil – and less than honest too.

I counted fifty-odd towering babels

on the way eastward, scraping against a clear Sunday sky

                                                              while

far behind me the Denver Gold played to a fully-dotted stadium.

You playfully avoid the grand canyon

of Denver's capital dream,

leaving that fare to 17^th and the like;

preferring to do honor – and you do – to Denver's Capitol

     and to those granite-pillared fellows in Federalist contemplation,

     in whose halls no fillibuster yet has e'er matched yours,

     you do us homage.

Mother of Denver, terrible Mother – dancing with the

cacophonous ghetto-blasters and girly theatres,

     permitting pimps and bag-people

     and thieves and junkies

fair pass over your steady stream of white lines.

As well as those of us

who keep our seedy habits at home

when not driving the kids to the babysitter or picking up

     Big T groceries,

     attending church and the laundromat

or just going to the park to kick off our shoes.

Nourishing all at the feeding trough

of your myriad gas pumps

you kindly exact in repayment only some Goodyear rubber

to paint your pavement's spine.

Extend, extend, old Colfax!

to Aurora and beyond, beyond Chambers, yea,

     even until Limon, yes,

     distant land of the rising sun, yea,

even to the fields of Kansas, I'll warrant.

Hail, Colfax, you are the hallmark

     of what Denver still retains,

     oft taking the number-16 and the number-15 over

         diverse landscapes,

from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Who shall e'er disown you, Lady Colfax -

    I am not afraid to walk with you

    and feel the furrows and contours of your years,

the crust of your memories -

Were I to reject you, were I to seek distance between

your bones and mine,

I'd join all of South Denver

in fear of your local color,

your contrasts and your dangers,

your risks and your follies,

the inexplicable pleasure of knowing you, first-hand.

Colfax, and Colfax still, forever yourself.

Long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long

long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long

long long long

long -

Would that this ode were as long as thee.