“Another subversive love poem was sparked by Mr. Mehigan’s observation of an umbrella salesman outside a Q train station in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.”
Excerpt:
“Steadfastly, though the rush-hour crowd star thinning,
he stares into this morning so like evening
because he seeks the one he knows will come
one always just about to turn the corner,
blushing, and misty-faced, and misty-haired
skirting the storefronts, beautifully bereft,
who has left home this morning unprepared.” (Full Poem…)
“Until he gave up alcohol in 1999, Mr. Mehigan spent much of his time in what he called a “fog of drinking,” sometimes waking up with blisters on his chest after falling drunkenly asleep at night while smoking. It was the drinking that helped get him fired from the press.”
“‘I was already wasted and had gotten in a fight with a friend about Walt Whitman,’ he said, recalling the night in question. ‘Then I went upstairs and immediately got in a fight with my girlfriend.’ After taking the subway to Chelsea and consuming a 40-ounce bottle of Budweiser and several Bud tall boys, Mr. Mehigan let himself into the empty offices of the publisher at 3:30 a.m. and passed out at his desk while hunting for nocturnal entertainment on the Internet.”
Links:
The Poetry of Joshua Meshigan [New York Times]
Finding the Verse in Adversity [New York Times via Ohio University Press]