poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
“From Jen-ghis Can to the Fuller Brush man, they’re just a bunch of losers like me.” That’s the last line of the first song on this world-weary and wonderful record, as least as well as I can render it phonetically. And today, I’m really feeling the title of the album.
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Happy Days
these sidewalks are littered
with slowly fading memories
their edges are folding up
colors draining from the images
already Terrace Bagels has changed
it shrank then grew again
Thomas Wolfe once more proved right
but at least the bagels are still good
I’m three blocks from “our” place
waiting for the person you were jealous of
funny how relationships turn out
how I cling to what I can
outside the cafe door a woman
shakes a paper cup in the wind
she’s singing a song I can’t hear
as one person after another passes her by
just in case the point needed to be made
the theme from Happy Days starts playing
I watch my own reruns for a moment more
then turn off the channel and stand to hug my friend
/ / /
22 March 2014
Terrace Bagels
Windsor Terrace
Brooklyn, NY
unpacking
a pair of her jeans
in my laundry bag
along with the Tufts sweatpants
we shared back and forth
it was inevitable
a note scribbled on
one sheet of white paper
telling me she loved me
and couldn’t wait to come home
pictures of us kissing
the notebook she gave me
when I left town
the one in which she wrote
her “this isn’t the end” letter
she was wrong, we both were
as I carried all the boxes and bags
from the little storage room
to the moving van in the lot
I remembered the spring day when
we filled up that little room with boxes
then I got on a bus, headed for
who knew where or what
and by the time I got back
it was over
17 November 2013
Oak Street
it’s unusually warm for November
tonight I’ll be in Brooklyn again
ready to say my goodbyes
16 November 2013
Oak Street
walking past the Union Hotel
I remember our last days there
sweaty days of packing and moving
making love in a tiny hotel room
eating ramen across the street
tears in the Port Authority bus terminal
but today I wasn’t sad, I didn’t cry
I simply remembered
and kept walking
13 September 2013
Brooklyn NY
smile and call you buddy
an ocean of lights and windows
on which sail eight million voices
speaking eight hundred languages
at night the city becomes a galaxy
office windows like clusters of stars
headlights zooming through the black
trailing their comet tails behind them
or maybe it’s a forest of pointed towers
trunks with no branches, no leaves
thrusting toward the sunlight obscured
on the concrete and asphalt below
more than anything it is home
the ground is firm, the grid makes sense
the street vendors sell falafel
smile and call you buddy
2 August 2013
Auburn AL
satori on the East River Ferry
you are imagining
what it would be like
to have this conversation
on the East River Ferry
bridges on both sides
gulls overhead
standing close to one another
because you have to lean in
to hear her over the engines
Williamsburg is at your back
ahead lies an uncertain future
but you don’t care at all
because this moment
is what matters
24 July 2013
Auburn AL
bodega
I want to slip out of the rain
into a bodega in Sunset Park
where the Iraqi owner
calls me “buddy†or some-
times “sir†which sounds
OK when he says it
I want to buy two Mexican
Cokes in chilled glass bottles
a package of OREO cookies
a box of kitchen matches
cheap headphones
and a tall slim candle
showing the Virgen de Guadalupe
I want to wait while
the old woman counts coins
from her tattered change purse
and the young kid who
works nights sells lottery tickets
to two busboys who stopped in
on the their way home
I want to get a craving for a snack
at three o’clock in the morning
and know that the place
will be just as busy as at
three o’clock in the afternoon
I want to choose my drink slowly
from the cooler in the back of the store
so I can watch two old men and two
younger men play dominoes and
tell jokes in a language I can’t identify
I want to buy mint chocolate chip
ice cream for the woman
who’s waiting for me
in the bed we share
just down the street
from the bodega
22 March 2013
Auburn AL
sound and vision
raspberry iced tea and cashews
David Bowie’s Low
and a weird misty sun
photos of the greenhouse
near Greenwood
one more connection severed
it’s mostly OK now but
sometimes there’s a tightness
in my chest that stays a while
11 February 2013
Auburn AL
 |
| From East River Ferry Adventure – July 10, 2011 |
bohemian gangster
(for Nicole)
he waits for the boys to come back from the job
he’s in the back of the café, smoking a clove cigarette
picking lint off the front of his plaid work shirt
he keeps a hand-crafted artisanal hatchet
concealed in a quick-draw sling under the table
you can’t be too careful these days
there was a time, not so long before,
when the gangster’s life was easier, safer
the coffee shops and independent bookstores
and the head shops — especially the head shops —
paid their money and kept their mouths shut
no one bought a bong or a copy of Ginsberg
in this city without him getting a piece of it
now, though, with every Barnes & Noble
selling coffee and Kerouac like it was nothing
things just ain’t what they used to be
it was getting so a man couldn’t even ride the L
without some flip-flop-clad Portland beard
sitting in the seat he always sat in
he was starting to wonder if he shouldn’t go legit
open up a little place of his own in DUMBO
or maybe Sunset Park, where the normal people live
hell, even a hookah shop would be easier than this
he stabs out his clove, runs the stirrer through the
foam leaf on top of his latte, sighs deeply
15 January 2013
Auburn, AL
sense of humor
long parade of strollers
no child has the same
hair color as the woman
pushing the stroller
(all of the latter are texting
or listening with earbuds)
a boy has a rock in his shoe
then in the other shoe
one bench later, his twin sister
develops the same ailment
there’s an uneaten bagel
in a brown paper bag
on the time-worn bench
just when the sun gets too hot
to comfortably bear
a long, thick layer of clouds
passes between it and the
bench-sitters below
then, with a timing
that seems intentional
the warmth returns right when
the bench-sitters put on
their sweatshirts and jackets
funny
10 May 2012
Brooklyn NY
earthquake
in the morning, butterflies
using your white sweatshirt
as landing pad and launch site
while all the good dogs
pulled their owners through the park
then it was Coney Island
empire of the perfectly janky
you’re barefoot in the icy water
dressed like a color-blind superhero
BROOKLYN announced on your ass
by the time we reached Thai Tony’s
the ground had begun to tremble
shaking our glasses of iced tea
but it passed before it was even a story
leaving nothing but the feeling
that we might not be welcome
on this earth after all
6 May 2012
Brooklyn, NY
a Brooklyn fable
every short sharp shock is a gunshot in Brooklyn
even though it’s more likely, here in Windsor Terrace
to be a workman putting the finishing touches
on the new back deck of a banker’s brownstone
or two bloggers fencing their organic garden
but the back-of-the-brain memory of urban sounds
learned through a lifetime of movies and rumors
defeats the more recent research of the eyes
isn’t it dangerous there, ask the wide-eyed Ohioans
and we want to say yes to them, confirm their belief
because we came here for the danger, the adventure
not for fresh tofu and chai tea and strollers in the park
you’re more likely to be struck by a $5,000 bicycle
than by the steel-jacketed bullet with your name on it
but don’t worry, you can make up a scary story in the ER
and all your friends will believe it, because they need to
30 April 2012
Brooklyn NY
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April. This is the final poem. I missed a few days, but I came up with some keepers, too. A fun month.
Brooklyn cowboy (based on a true story)
he saunters in to the bagel shop
leather duster nearly reaching the floor
sunglasses on despite the overcast day
boot heels clocking along the tiles
satchel slung across his chest
sunken mouth looking short on teeth
no six-shooter, which is just as well
the cops in this bagel shop don’t know
how lines work and they don’t have
senses of humor, either
he moves like a mountain
counts out his change like he’s looking
for a coin to give the ferryman
one cup of black coffee later
he gathers his things to leave
there’s a yellowed sheet of paper
poking out the top of his satchel
as the door closes behind him
everyone in the cafe sighs in relief
glad to not be the name or the face
on the cowboy’s tattered poster
23 April 2012
Brooklyn NY
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.
where I’m loving Brooklyn
“I’m having one of those days
where I’m loving Brooklyn so much”
we were walking down 5th Ave
when she said it, bellies full of sushi
noses full of blooming magnolias
(we thought the plant on our
window sill was a lilac but it wasn’t)
“and you” she added, holding my arm
the way you see in picture books
of the early 1900s, when the women
carried parasols & the men wore boaters
& white shoes & striped jackets
(it turned out to be a hyacinth)
these days Brooklyn feels like an ocean
our room an island floating in it
the bed our lean-to under the palm trees
where we write messages on the pages of books
slip them into bottles / cast them into the sea
(it didn’t matter to us at all)
20 April 2012
Brooklyn NY
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.