Heraclitus said it best. You can't step into the same river twice.

When it comes to the poetry scene in New York City, he got that right. By the time you read this, it won't be true anymore.

Heraclitus also said there's a Unity of Opposites, and the old Greek must have been checking out the NYC scene when he said that too, because it also applies. There's a high and a low end going on in Manhattan's poetry world, though both are undergoing major shifts and changes.

Until recently gentrification looked to be putting a shiv into the heart of the Bohemian underclass milieux, and twisting it with yuppy glee. Not just here in New York City of course, a lot of formerly edgy vortices have suffered similarly, and anyhow the edge is always only a socio-economic tick or two away from re-emerging. But there's an upside to gentrification. You can race about town in subways and walk lonely late night drippy Manhattan streets with less chance of getting mugged.

Meanwhile, the big shots of American literature are scratching their heads when it comes to Manhattan. For something like an entire century, NYC has been home to the most muscular, shoulder swaggering, elbow shoving bunch of publishing houses and magazine operatives you can imagine. But everybody knows the world of newspapers, magazines and books is all shook up, and the base of operations for the nation's literary tastemakers is a big question mark.

You can't step into the same river twice. Good quote! I confess that I first heard it not from the lips of some philosophy professor at college, but from the Fugs -- Ed Sanders and the late Tuli Kupferberg -- whose mix of erudite anthropo-philosophizing and yippie scatalogical frenzy once upon a time provided a beacon for many in the downtown Manhattan poetry scene.

Heraclitus also said something clever about how the more things change the more they remain the same, but I can't remember the quote exactly. Anyhow in a sense, it's always once upon a time in New York, and that mix of erudition and filthy street talk is our particular magic.

Which is to say that you can get pretty much anything you want, high end or low end, around here, even today.

Let's dispose of the high end first.

You can check out what's happening at the PEN center, for poetry of international witness. Dip your toes into the deep end of the pool -- the agoras of American Poetry status-makers -- such as the 92nd St Y, NYU, Columbia and the New School. Walk among memorials to the immortals -- our very own poets corner uptown at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, which commemorates everyone from Phyllis Wheatley to Gertrude Stein, with plenty of Auden, Poe, Twain and Whitman thrown in.

You can browse for a couple of hours at what is arguably the nation's best collection of poetry chapbooks available to the public at the Poets House, overlooking the Hudson.

Some of the places which are attaining landmark status have a recent veneer of edginess, others less so. There's the cellar bar where America's first bohemia was invented, that‘s pretty old school. There's the Chelsea Hotel, home to everyone from Dylan Thomas to Herbert Huncke and Charles Henri Ford. There are street corners made holy by the likes of Rev Pedro Pietri. Places where Max Bodenheim and Joe Gould scrounged a drink. There are curbs and gutters where Kerouac and Corso bled ink, clubs where Jim Carroll and Lou Reed and Patti Smith ghosted through, cafes frequented by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Phil Ochs.

The potential for namedropping is endless. Wallace Stevens. Hart Crane. Eugene O'Neill. Emma Lazarus.

John Lennon. Mayakovsky. Frederico Garcia Lorca. Blaise Cendrars.

Andre Breton.

Bleeker Street. Christopher Street. Algonquin Club. Carnegie Hall.

CBGBs!

THE PERFORMANCE SCENE
Enough -- all that's good, though most of it is in the past. For my money it is the present that matters. And to me that means the ever-changing Poetry in Performance scene, mainly downtown. Here you'll find the freshest evening out, and any number of places to step into Heraclitus' river.

Day to day, the communal performing scene is in full flower around Manhattan -- as it has been since the first Bohemians walked its cobblestoned streets -- and that‘s where one‘s most likely to experience the cutting edge.

Bowery Poetry Club, Cornelia Street Cafe, The Tribes Gallery, Hydrogen Jukebox. Bengal Curry and the Yippie Museum. Otto's Shrunken Head, Smalls Jazz Club. KGB Bar. ABC No Rio. The list is endless.

For those with a knack for taking subways or trains, there are plenty more venues within easy reach in the boroughs (particularly Brooklyn), Connecticut, New Jersey and on Long Island.

http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3d8zo38zF2JrdRInAUC_pSdQ;www.poetz.com is the best Po-Cal I know of online for the New York area, with separate calendars for NYC, Long Island, Connecticut and the Hudson Valley. But for our purposes, here’s a weekly guide to what’s happening in the best downtown performance venues I know of right now.

Monday night, look to either Nightingale Lounge (213 Second Ave @E 13th St http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3d9zA85OatGes2qSpTC5gubA;www.supolo.com/Saturn_Series_Poetry.html) or the infamous KGB Bar (85 E 4th St @ 2nd Ave/Bowery http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3d2GZXx1jQ8aiq_9cYImLW2w;www.kgbbar.com).

Tuesday’s best bet is either the Urbana Slam (Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery @ Bleecker, foot of 1st St btwn Houston/Bleecker http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dMzqls3Uc-az4wl1U7lA66Q;www.bowerypoetry.com) or Bluestocking’s Womens/Trans Poetry Slam (Bluestockings172 Allen St @Stanton http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3d4kaj-g9M6VYWZYcp2Su_kw;www.bluestockings.com)

Wednesday night you’ll find featured readers at St. Mark's Church Poetry Project (131 East 10th St @ Second Ave http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3d6kZ_Cx8a_IhWTx1Z0C48BA;www.poetryproject.org); or a comfy streamed local tv thing at Poetry Thin Air (Channel 67 on Manhattan Neighborhood Network http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dws_PK6dOSZ-uIFq5QUHZBA;www.mnn.org/sites/mnn.org/files/streams/ch67.asx)

Thursday, try The Inspired Word One and One Bar & Restaurant. downstairs Nexus Lounge (76 East 1st St @ First Ave http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dCx3vE326THnGbT1Vi4JVRw;www.oneandoneny.com/)

Friday there’s either The Nuyorican Poets Café regular Poetry Slam (236 East 3rd St, Ave B/C http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dmQPBfba8nWlwwcezpqdBrw;www.nuyorican.org) or the long-running Son of a Pony (Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia St W 4th/Bleecker St http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dUAdoZUbysaBSiMrxgnFOxQ;www.corneliastreetcafe.com)

For a decent weekly featured reader series on Saturday, there’s the Segue Reading Series (Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery @ Bleecker, foot of 1st St., btwn Houston/Bleecker http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dMzqls3Uc-az4wl1U7lA66Q;www.bowerypoetry.com)

And Sunday afternoon’s one can always find something good going down at either SOS ABC No Rio (156 Rivington St. at Clinton/Suffolk St, 2 blocks south of Houston 212-674-3585) or the Phoenix Reading Series at Bengal Curry (65 West Broadway, 1 ½ blocks below Chambers St http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dVmhQ2DeW4Tq5jEq8LJU6TA;phoenixpoetryseries.blogspot.com)

A lot of events happen monthly. Some of my regular visits are

Fourth Saturday -- Hydrogen Jukebox Cornelia St Café
Third Wednesday -- Poetry Exposion Cornelia St Café
Third Sunday -- Beat Hour, Bowery Poetry Club
Fourth Saturday -- Smalls Jazz Club (183 West 10th St nr Sheridan Square on 7th Ave http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3d3xV_71ijAsUBjDRBX4AqXg;www.smallsjazzclub.com)

And of course, every day/any day, there’s something going down at the Bowery Poetry Club. Check their listings at http://www.facebook.com/l/cdc3dcxnWEgZ0mM1V1hX9pzt1bw;www.bowerypoetry.com.


THE BOTTOM LINE
Anyhow all of these are all merely addresses. They're not the edge itself. People looking for the edge in New York oughtn't to be looking for a specific address where it's happening, or a place to buy the t-shirt or light a candle to it. The edge has always been in the individual hearts of those who come to New York, and what they bring to the party.

That's what keeps changing while it remains the same.

And that’s why I say by the time you read this, it won't be true anymore, or at least parts of it won't be. And to me that's heartening. New York City is alive and changing every minute.

The other day a young poet who was trying to dig what is happening these days in NYC asked me where to go -- where are the young people doing their thing. I told her it's you -- the thing is happening where YOU are.

That's the bottom line. And it goes for you too. Next time you come to town, drop in on one or another of the venues, and get the lowdown. If you don't find what you're looking for, make something happen yourself.

Hey it's New York City. You make the scene.

Step into the river, sons and daughters.