Patti Smith Does The Hamptons

Patti Smith, you
are not looking good.
You must know that.
The years have
weathered you like
a Cape Cod shingle.

I suppose you
are as angry at this life
as you ever were, back
when you crawled in
from The Jersey Suburbs
to hang in The Bunker
with Burroughs
and Ginsberg,
and Mapplethorpe.

The Original
Bowery Fag-Hag.

I can only imagine
the suffering endured,
dragging a brush
through that hair.
But you stayed on
your feet last night,
despite the teetering,
sustaining yourself
with a bottle of
Poland Spring.

If I had had
the chance to
actually speak to you,
I would have told you
that I am a poet too.

And if there was
any hope of a reply,
I might have asked
you why you
spit on my new shoe.


—Daniel Thomas Moran


Daniel Thomas Moran is the author of five volumes of poetry, the most recent, From HiLo to Willow Pond, was published by Street Press in 2002. He has read widely at libraries, schools and universities throughout New York City and Long Island and has done readings in Ireland, Italy and Austria. From 1997-2005 he served as Vice-President of The Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in West Hills, New York where he instituted The Long Island School of Poetry Reading Series and has been Literary Correspondent to Long Island Public Radio where he hosted The Long Island Radio Magazine. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize on three occasions. In 2005 he was appointed Poet Laureate by The Legislature of Suffolk County, New York. He has edited The Light of City and Sea: An Anthology of Suffolk County Poetry (Street Press, 2006). His collected papers are being archived by The State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a practicing Doctor of Dentistry on Shelter Island in New York where he lives with his wife Karen.