Bum Stash: Early 21st Century

The lot had been emptied by the police/city who put up a new fence and padlock and took down the trees and crops, and replaced soil with gravel. This year some crops pushed up again. Objects returned, this time under plastic, a long low stick of furniture with nine drawers, one missing, a yellow mustard color. Someone built a lean-to of mattresses, not steady and positioned a hubcap to shelter a plant from sun. Someone collected the brass number 5, strung it on a wire, and someone added a brown chipped water pitcher.

Later observed in secret, a man with magenta hair adding objects he found on the street. I saw him sitting on a broken rowing machine and then on a broken stationary bike; the exercise equipment rested on the gravel. When he left he locked the gate with his own working lock.

Bum stash tore apart. Lean-to pushed over, same objects but did the police or the magenta man tear it all down? (May 15, 01)

Lot cleared and new gravel laid down, an orange shopping cart chained to fence. (May 25, 01).

Orange shopping cart unchained and rolled to street corner, miniature boxed pie and particle board inside basket. (2nd & 1st, June 10, 01).

Two white 70s appliances/ On one corner, washer with an oval window in the door, laundry inside w/ brown mold/ on the other corner, dryer./ No one can write much nowadays because it takes money/ in the 70s people wrote all the time, now/ we don’t have room to lay it all out, so lay parts at a time, pick them up and then lay some more/ I iron and bake that way and try to think of things to do for money/ crochet and knit/ sell blood and hair/ pick garbage for copper and aluminum. When my husband left, I thought I could start to lay it out, move it around, until an alchemy took hold. /So I laid it all out: 2 super 8s, a 35 mm, found photos, books of the Bowery, poetry, and there was lots of poetry. / Artifacts, flattened bottle caps, rusted cans, early tin cans, many interesting screws and bolts, sometimes found machines in enamel green, and sometimes, bobbins and thread. / I laid it all out/ stared at it/ moved it/ talked to myself about it/ read it all again/ waited/ nothing happened. / I put it all back. (July 27, 01, 75 E. 2nd St.)