Mayday
oh to be
in love
on a rock
in a pond
in Central Park
on a foggy
first of May
1 May 2012
Central Park
New York City
Category: New York City
15th Street
for ________
every time I see you
I have to write a poem
about the sound
of your uncertain accent
or the look
in your classic
mascaraed eyes
like an It Girl
from a silent movie
you’re wobbling
slightly
on silly shoes
shoes you wore
just for this occasion
(but not for me)
we overtipped the server
whispered
snarky stories
you told me your
guilty truths
so I told you mine
you gave me dried
mango and chocolate
and as we walked
to the train
a crazy moon stared
down at us
from the end
of 15th Street
7 April 2012
Manhattan
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April. I missed yesterday, so this is my second poem for today. I wrote it earlier this month but didn’t post it.
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.
two turtles on a rock
a robin watching, feet just beneath the surface
of this little pond in a corner of Prospect Park
there’s a fallen-down half-sunken wooden fence
overgrown with vines / a newer metal fence
keeps everyone this close to nature but no closer
the pond has a bend in it but it’s deceptive —
the water ends right there / no adventure awaits
at least not the kind we associate with rivers
now the robin is bathing, chest puffed out in hubris
until a third, smaller turtle swims up behind
convinces the bird there’s no shame in sunbathing
when I look up from writing that line, it’s gone
15 April 2012
Prospect Park
Brooklyn
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.
throw down your sock, Allen:
an East Village bestiary
1.
sit on the church steps, she says
see that building across the street?
that’s where Ginsberg lived
I don’t cry, but I could
just think of the poets who stood
on this East Village sidewalk,
yelling up to the fourth floor
for Allen to throw down the key
wrapped in an old sock
2.
a few blocks away is another spot
where Ginsberg lived, home
of the famous fire escape photo
of Jack Kerouac, who wrote most
of The Subterraneans here
imagine Jack and Allen talking
late into the night
about poetry and the Buddha
and Neal, always Neal
3.
the tallest building in the East Village
was once the castle of the King
of the Stooges, son of Ypsilanti
who enjoyed taking off his shirt
and whose anarchic anthem now serves
as background music for Carnival Cruise ads
the only reasons he’s not spinning in his grave are
(a) he’s not dead and (b) all that money
presumably
4.
DETOUR: A bird. A real live bird.
5.
there’s no sign at all
that Frank O’Hara lived here
at 441 E. 9th St.
one of the principals of the
New York School
Frank taught us to write
with the bare nerve endings
pressed against the page
6.
this Mexican restaurant?
Auden lived upstairs, perusing
his copy of The Times of London
and bemoaning the recent
liberation theology at St. Mark’s
Trotsky worked in the basement
years earlier, until the distant sound
of palace gunshots sent him back
to the New Russia
7.
there’s a Buddha in the piercing shop
where Anne Waldman used to live
she the protector and chronicler
of what was started here
somewhere under the floor
is a time capsule
with a single hit of acid
waiting to expand the consciousness
of a construction worker or perhaps
the building superintendent
8.
if you’re hungry, there’s a Chipotle
on the spot where Andy Warhol presented
The Velvet Underground
lost your appetite? I’m not surprised
9.
when he was still called LeRoi Jones
he lived here with his wife and two kids
on the day Malcolm stopped breathing
he decided not to live here anymore
(his wife and two kids still did)
10.
the yuppies are eight deep
outside what used to be The Tin Palace
but the Tin Emperor has left
taking his jester with him
no more saxophones filling the night
while the patrons crunch shells underfoot
now, aspiring actors in waist-down aprons
and crisp white Oxfords hover over
sidewalk tables full of hedge fund managers
you can keep your tired and your poor
thank you very much
11.
finally there’s a nice young man
strumming a guitar in the empty
backroom bar
where Uncle Walt’s Lite Brite face
watches over the poets
in a blue-red benediction
I contain multitudes of light bulbs
says Uncle Walt
14 April 2012
the East Village
Manhattan
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April. I wrote this poem after taking the East Village Poetry Walk, which I highly recommend. For more about the Tin Palace (mentioned in #10), here’s my interview with its founder, Paul Pines.
after the show
you can fit
quite a lot
into a walk
down Canal Street
minutes of snark
the big reveal
the expected answer
a parting embrace
but fewer kisses
than were allowed
by previous texts
you win some
you lose some
some you replay
the A comes
one goes uptown
one to Brooklyn
the end
14 April 2012
Brooklyn, NY
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.
kissing you at the bus stop
the rain had been threatening all day
making good on its promise briefly at the bus stop
you leaned back against the brick wall on 10th Ave
(“bobby & gabby 4ever”)
so I could kiss you / slide my hands
through your hair from the nape of your neck
to the top of your head
“you should kiss her,” you said, because
you’re the kind of person who would say that
I was more than content in that moment
to drink in the blue of your eyes
as the soft rain wetted your lips
12 April 2012
Manhattan
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.
Naruto Ramen, Brooklyn
where the cooks speak a mixture
of Japanese and Spanish
“Irashaimase!” they call
as people come in off 5th Ave
hang their coats and backpacks
on the wall hooks
those who know sit at the bar
because the bar is a sacred place
where devotion is paid
to the sprout, the noodle,
the bean pod, the tofu square,
the white pepper garnish
the sweat on the brow
the cold Sapporo or Asahi
the cheap balsa wood hashi
that you break at the end
scraping the sticks against
one another to remove splinters
order the extra noodles because
they’re generous with the broth
slurp loud enough to pay respect
to the hachimaki-sporting men
flinging pots on the six-burner stove
like Barishnikovs with ladles
for some, the nostalgia is as thick
as the steam rising off the broth pots
it’s a bit of a surprise to leave
and find yourself in Brooklyn
not in any of a thousand thousand shops
just like this one, tucked around a corner
of a narrow street, in every town in Japan
4 April 2012
Brooklyn, NY
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.
Prospect Park Lake
a silent fleet paddles by
streaming out in a v
behind the leader
a rat pokes its nose
out of the reeds
it’s waiting for us to pass
so it can run for the roots
of a nearby oak tree
as if on loan from
the set designer
there is, of course, a swan
it looks majestic but sounds
like a duck with a kazoo
lodged in its throat
the sound is shocking
a burp from Princess Grace
the requisite moon glows
behind a low, lush layer of cloud
silvering the waters
and in a moment of madness
I get down on both knees
take your hands in mine
lean in for a kiss
ask you not to marry me
3 April 2012
Brooklyn NY
/ / /
It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April. This is the second poem I posted today. I wasn’t too fond of the first one.
safe as houses
seagulls are protesting / in the dawn skies / above the post office
we’re waiting / by the hot dog cart / for our buses to
Baltimore / Pittsburgh / Boston / Washington
it’s cold enough to snow / but the young Australian / is wearing an open / denim jacket / over a t-shirt
trying not to shiver / as he discusses college / with an Asian woman /
who has a British accent
no one knows where to stand / for which bus / so the affable coffee drinker / in his knit cap / says “Boston” / over and over again / to each person who approaches
the ride from Brooklyn / to Manhattan / was stereotypical / of the kind of New York / you don’t really see these days
vomit on the A train / (twice) / the smell of sewage / rising like a physical presence / from the grates in the street
that said / New York is cleaner now / safer / in every sense of the word
you can’t imagine the Velvets / blasting into the world / with this New York / as a launching pad
not when Katy Perry / stands five stories tall / in Times Square / next to an illuminated M&M
Leave a CommentListen to this poem using the player above.
/ / /
cotton candy
God was on the G train today
disguised as an Ecuadorian man in his 40s
He was selling cotton candy
dozens of bags of it like palm leaves
stapled to the top of a long stick
it’s a thankless job, being God
and also selling cotton candy
having to ride the G is a bit of a drag, too
especially on a Sunday
still, though, after all the years
pushing abstinence and devotion
cotton candy is an easier product to market
the kids like it, too, in a way they
never cottoned (sorry) to His book
at Bergen Street the Devil got on
selling blinky lights and flashlights
for two bucks a pop
he is the Light Bearer, after all
and let’s be honest, he’s a much better salesman
funny that after all the casting down and the weeping
and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth
they’re both on the same train
trying to make a buck
Listen to this poem using the player above.
I wrote this today on the 6 train while listening to John Cale’s album Vintage Violence.
/ / /
Cale on the 6
John Cale’s on the uptown 6
singing about Adelaide
Spring to Bleeker to Astor Place
on a November day
that finally feels like winter
there’s a guy a few seats down
who’s a ringer for Robert Pinsky
(whom I last saw in Boston
reading poems to commemorate 9/11)
five more stops and I’ll be at the temple
with the money lenders and usurers
meanwhile there are happy hands
clapping on the Cale album
and a tambourine that sounds
like a baby laughing
I feel I should tell you this
so we’ll both know
Listen to this poem using the player above.
/ / /
crossing Canal
we crossed Canal Street like royalty
me holding a scribbled poem
you holding me, stopping the cars
the newspaper boy had a beautiful voice
like an angel crossing a highwire
when we reached the sidewalk
we kissed
and I thought:
this is why we have sidewalks
cafe song
the rain is falling in Sunset Park
as the potbellied men come into the cafe
for their noontime sandwiches
rare roast beef and a slice of cheesecake
washed down by hot black coffee
*
a ponytailed professor reads comic books
on his laptop and drinks Japanese tea
while a bald kid writes song lyrics
and nurses a glass of water
*
up in the balcony, two young lovers
(aren’t they always?)
play Brooklyn Monopoly
dry their wet heads with paper towels
hold steaming cups of chai in four hands
*
the baristas, men and women,
are young and beautiful
smoking on their coffee breaks
falling in love with the customers
who are falling in love with them
*
come away with me, she sings
as the cappuccino machine whirs
and the dumbwaiter rumbles
up to the balcony with something
to take the edge off the rain
Based on a true story.
orgasm
“Mary never had an orgasm —
God put that baby in her stomach,”
says the subway preacher
while the high schoolers giggle
he warns of sex with a lady
two ladies four ladies
seven ladies twenty ladies
then his imagination runs dry
and his stop comes
the car is as silent
as subway cars ever get
then something sets the girls
to giggling again
“That’s New York,” one of them says