Category: New York City

backpack ballad
(to Gretchen)

today I retired my old backpack
a gift from my younger sister
who found her footing earlier than I did

it was one of those backpacks
with one strap, the kind that slings
heroically across the chest

I always felt, when putting it on
as if an adventure were about to start
John Williams music in the background

that backpack carried so much music
hundreds, maybe thousands of CDs
stuffed in till the zipper asked for mercy

it held notebooks full of poems, too
the green one from Kate, the black ones
I bought even when I didn’t need them

now, though, there’s a hole in the bottom
if there’s one thing a backpack can’t tolerate
it’s a hole in the most important place

so I bought a new messenger bag
just in time to go back home where
an adventure is surely about to start

21 August 2013
Auburn AL

home

soon I’ll be where the people
press against you from all sides
where you can go hours without
hearing anyone speak English
where at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night
if you decide you need a snack
there’ll be a place open on the block
where people know what bagels are
and the subway will take you anywhere
it’s the place where I know how I fit in
where I understand the rhythms
where pizza tastes like pizza
and there are flowers growing
on the High Line

9 August 2013
Auburn AL

the band across the river

we sit in silence, looking across the river
New Jersey shines like a constellation
eventually the quiet is broken
by a loud cover band on the Jersey side
a Bob Seeger song drifts across the water
we both laugh as we wonder if this is the end
it is, though we won’t know for sure for weeks yet
a man on the next bench strikes up a conversation
it’s one in the morning and we’re all enjoying
the silky feeling of a summer night in New York
after a while we stand, say goodbye to our new friend
walk off in search of a train that will take us back
to our hotel room in Brooklyn, the place we’re staying
because we no longer have a home together
and the home was just a room anyway
and everything is ending slowly
and the band across the river plays Mustang Sally

4 August 2013
Auburn AL

a typical night in the West Village

there was an iguana
the size of a dinosaur
waiting on the sidewalk
outside the 55 Bar
we eased past it cautiously
headed up Christopher Street
toward 7th Avenue
the drunk kids on the corner
were arguing about dancing
as their argument got louder
they attracted the attention
of the oversized iguana
we slipped into an ATM lobby
took out our smart phones
and Instagrammed the carnage
when it was over and the iguana
had lumbered down 7th
we eased out of the lobby
strolled arm in arm down the street
arriving at Soy & Sake
just in time for our reservation

3 August 2013
Auburn AL

crazy angel

his thoughts possessing him
he walks into lampposts
unaware, steps into busy streets
he makes wrong turns
finds himself in dead-end alleys
on the Lower East Side
what he lacks
in the common sense of the streets
he makes up for with wisdom
the wisdom of one who has
seen the sun rise in the nighttime
heard the moon sing the city to sleep
wisdom like the Chinese sages
huddled in their caves
to escape the cold gaze of the emperor
he walks the streets like a crazy angel
shielded from the prying eyes of God
by the artificial mountains of Manhattan
he steps over puddles or sometimes into them
never noticing the water in his shoes
he drops coins in the cups of the homeless
coins in the fountains in the park
coins the last remaining payphone
then he fades like a shadow in the dark

23 May 2013
Auburn AL