Two New York Poems
I.
[Allegro, con humor] When I told my sister
All about my mister,
She yelled: “What a pissah!
Hey, get outta heah.”
II.
[Andante] Well, now, New York …
I was leaving New York
Poetry
Times Square
Flighty rustlings in the night
Gossip freely, unashamed.
Louder boomings, sonorous rumblings
Cry out proudly unrestrained.
Lightly flashing over drabness,
Neons dancing, never pausing.
Glaring brothers in the darkness
Echo deeply, colors tossing.
Paper phantoms in the roadway
Walk past briskly, almost racing.
Eyes and nose fuse into pinkness,
Souls go drifting, feet go pacing.
Brassy, sassy, painting, painted –
Panting starings, knowing frowns,
Beggars’ cups and autos’ whishings,
Sable coats, bejeweled crowns.
The New Yorker
Mighty:
Great and high.
As powerful as life.
Stalwart as mountain walls.
Taller than ancient oaks, so very tall
Yet tender in its heart,
Tender and compassionate
But mighty all the same
Mighty.
Reflections …
See and know brother man
Thru the mirror of his city.
Varied as man’s emotions; built to glorify his conquests,
Meek as his meekest, as forward as his boldest,
His city reflects hopes and desires
With hazy pictures –
Reflections.
Promising.
Surging with powers.
Oh, the smell of eagerness is here,
Here in the city that is a monument to man,
Here, where the fiery frays of a thousand hearts find common peace,
Here where some find eternal war,
Where all is done to build,
Build to the very sky –
Promising.
Hateful.
Fury of hell.
Fury on the face of it.
Fury ‘neath the false surface of it.
Fury, why torture those who seek their peace within my city?
Do you show the mercy that we crave?
Naught but terror do you breed,
You spread what we despise.
Hateful.
Cauldron!
Yes, my city, you are a cauldron.
You are a cauldron of the world I love,
You blend the emotions I merge within myself,
You speak the truths I dare not speak,
You weave the fabric of my being,
You churn the butter of my heart,
You know all of me, all my soul,
Why can you not speak to me?
And tell me what I am?
Cauldron, please?
Cauldron.
Welcome to New York
Roar to life
Antiphonal bastard born by hell at night in blood-red seas
Emblazoned coat of arms across a field of fire
All beauty wrapped in a sack with the bones sticking through –
If not with grace at least with gall.
Earn a buck today
on the river in the stink of the scum
and floating beer cans
all the way from Albany I’ll bet goddammit they’re so rusty; in an office
breathing phony air
drinking bitter coffee twice a day
with lungs puffing on a girder swaying
to the music beating
like a drum with dollar signs for sticks
And all the tourists wear print dresses with big black buttons.
Down by the Plaza secretaries rushing
Black smear sloppy harsh in the glare
The maid gets a five dollar fine for letting the poodle defecate on the sidewalk.
When you cross the street cover your eyes:
Bus
vomits past
Choking
Chugging
Lustrous smoke for coughing
Crying
And two nuns on Madison Avenue stand waiting for the “walk” sign
Because they come from out-of-town and don’t know any better.
I
I see designs
On pavement squares
Wrought in constant gray.
I walk streets
(uneventful paths)
Through valleys of sinking gray.
I live my life
(whose else, I ask?)
In endless dusks of gray.
I long to be
(is that enough?)
Alone within my gray.
I hope to die
And then to live
In tombs of peaceful gray.
City Sill in Winter
There is no merit in this grey view,
The sky and stone all merge in smoke
As sentinels of stain
Inject the wind with blur.
The snow within the cracks and sills
Is flecked with black, unclear designs
And melts itself to dirty ice
And drips into the street below.
Alley
How to measure black decay
That sweeps through pavement on its way
To deaden, leaden, render gray
The reflux altar where we pray?
How to measure, judge or weigh
The bulk of flesh that we, the prey,
Must, on this surrender day,
Rip out, yield up and grant away?
What to do? What to say?
I ask you, friend, please find a way
To force the tender skin to stay,
To keep the hidden beast at bay.
Breezy Day in P-Town 1980
I find myself upon an open plain,
More an unexpected mesa on the Cape,
Sharp edged but cannot see beyond,
I am on the highest land around.
Above a hazy, chalky blue-ish sky.
I’m afraid I am not standing on the ground.
And the wind is blowing the short grass
So you cannot see where it’s safe to step,
Upwind, the clouds are black and solid
With that veil of gauze that is rain, I think,
And the wind now brings me moist wet-scented smells,
Mixed with lightning’s dry electric stink.
And I am dizzy, shaking, not serene
As if myself could fly up and away
To escape from whatever may occur
Here down below where things are not so clear.
I take shorter strides with feet wider apart,
My toes curl downward, anchored against fear.
I near the rim and then do not recall
How I found my access to this open space.
An agoraphobic panic now takes hold
And I sit down on a hard-packed shelf.
My eyes shut tight against the next,
As I turtle deeper down within myself.
The last thing I recall as I walk slow,
Escorted down a path to the sea below,
Is the touch of the child who leads me where I go,
My eyes still shut. I do not want to know.
I look again only when the sand
Clings moist and sticky gritty in my hand.
I do not know what I have become,
Nor can I speak. I have been stricken dumb.
3-17
.
Modern Puppy Love
Lady barista,
Love your tats.
Pull me my coffee
And that’s that.
I only come in here
‘cause you make it special.
I see your black nails,
And gold holes in your nose.
Cupa coffee mundane?
But you got the status.
A gift from espresso
To the whole civilized world.
You got a following,
Just like some DJ.
Fill up my nostrils,
Cover me with foam.
You got beans and lemon twists
And tiny spoons.
Stirrers of pale wood, actually.
Tiny napkin on the saucer.
I like the paucity
Of our interchange.
I like more the way you look.
Your hair is so straight.
Lady barista, make my your mista.
Day old pastry only a buck.
Love the whole thing.
Let’s have a date.
for Matthew 3-17
Progression Woman
She was mother in the morning
and fire in daylight
and unfulfilled at dusk.
She was passion at the noon hour
and neediness at sundown
and resignation in the darkness.
She was suggestive at the setting
and pain in the blackness
and regret in the heart of dark mornings.
She was harlot at dawn,
Harpy at mid-day,
Ill-conceived throughout.
She was sluttish in afternoon haze,
Coquettish in evening daze
and death when the stars came out to cry.
— February 2017