Empower Jim Power! The day they turned the lampposts into art

The City paints over them I don’t care you’d be amazed how quick

That stuff comes off

Like my sister told my father

when we moved from Waterford (Ireland)

(1959.  I was 13.) The British government

 was behind it all! she informed us, behind

our move and they were very very happy

to be getting the Power family off the island.

Distress em? I don’t have to distress em.

The City takes care of that. Last year’s

is already ancient. I mean, the concrete

cracks, they get the graffiti tags, the police

I honored die – one got disgraced. I

had to take his name off.

OK, I’ll be the artist, you be the poet.

OK, we’ll both be the teachers. Sure,

we’re neighbors, everybody on the LES

is neighbors. I miss my dog, Jessie Jane.

This dog’ll just have to do for now. She’s

in my basement in Williamsburg – this is

the second time I’ve left her alone. I don’t like

it. How bout this – “The Spirit of the Lower

East Side has moved to Williamsburg!”

Put that in.

You got your historicity embedded

in the close-ups – cause I  can’t see, see,

couldn’t see in Viet Nam, so I never shot any-

one. With the mosaics you get right in

there and dig your fingers in the light.

Stand over here willya?

It’s obvious that it’s a mosaic, the neigh-

borhood, the whole City. It ain’t

so obvious when you put it up on lamp-

posts, looks like it’s always been there,

know what I mean? But look down St. Marks

from here – its a trail, the Mosaic Trail! You

follow it like it’s a map, a book, a story!

Of course it’s Lincoln – he spoke here

at Cooper Union. I love it that it’s NYU

students who are out here in the cold showing

people around the mosaics, introducing them

to culture. Man, NYU has been like the worst,

the way they just eat up the streets. For what?

Not even any streets for me to live on.

This lamppost is for the Fillmore East, the good

old rock’n’roll concert hall from the good

old days! I put in the Allman Brothers, their logo,

and Jethro Tull. Those were crazy times, wonderful

times. “Bill Graham” in big mirrored letters –

boy we could use some of his energy now I tell you.

Listen up, People!

            Fill your ears with hot gossip and your eyes with art!

The creative hub of the galaxy, Friends!

            Right here!

The only contender for the term “Global Village,”

It’s right here, the East Village. And we’re here to stay!

This pole here, with the eyes, it’s been blowing

in the wind like this for ten years, a good four inches of play!

I’ve tried to patch it myself, but she just won’t hold.

Let the artists put up the 2^nd Avenue Subway! We

need a legitimate school for public art – outreach!

You throw it away? You throw what away?

That’s what I do -- recycle detritus into art,

that’s the way to make this City work.

I’m not afraid of work! The street is my studio!

Don’t forget – you’re the class that thinks the City

should have an Architect laureate – a new building

for public use every year, designed by a prizewinning

architect. Now let’s empower Jim Power! Heyup!

The living embodiment of street artist – his work

is nothing but a gift, a gift back to the neighborhood

he loves. How many homeless people do you know who

found housing by selling a domain name?! $10,0000

Jim got for selling Eastvillage.com. Enough money

so that he and Jessie Jane could leave the East Village!