i. New York I
This city feels hardened by greed and malicious intents.
Not for purposes of evil,
But nevertheless, self-justifying.
Passed from the successful dreamers,
To those hungry with unrealized ambition.
A rolling sea of narcissists.
Cutthroats, with shades of entitlement.
Seeming to tell themselves:“Because I live and work here, I am superior.
And because those around me are so like me (though I do not admit that)
I do what I must do to protect myself and my interests and investment,
from them and theirs, who are just like me and mine.
Nothing is personal, nothing is my character,
it is all just business.”
All these nothing characters, clamoring in just business.
Would you be a poor sailor, instead?
Dead to them but undead to the world.
Poor, but immortal.
Driven by the deep currents,
Instead of some cog in the service of greater gears, grinding on endlessly.
One of a thousand bricks, in this city of bricks.
Jostling upward through the pyramid.
Here, in our own great depression there are only the ‘made,’ the unlucky,
and the free who would have none of it.
ii. Statue at 11th and 52nd
Dampened Iron, clutching drooping flowers.
Forgotten in the breach of faith.
You died before you could see the war’s end,
The crash and the next war and all the untold wars since, that your war was to end, and all the crashes since that we have not learned from.
Do you sleep? Do you Dream? Do you watch the world that forgets you?
Do you groan to see what war has brought? What war has bought?
What machinations and production lines and investments and speculation and greed and the bottom lines have made since your ‘Great War’?
How grow the poppies? Well tended?
How grow the poppies, boys, in Flanders Fields?
The lark is neither heard nor noted. The ‘Old Lie’ still climbs,
A vine well-tended,
By the Mssrs’ grandsons and great-grandsons,
Who know that the the profits of supply and demand are tied to instability.
And you, oh youthful and impressionable, are the safeguard of their liberty to get rich.
A restless sleep it must be for you while they sleep soundly in old beds,
And the poppies wilt in your dark, unmoving hands.
iii. Sweet Delusions
He believed he was in love.
Deep and sincere and un-passionate.
And yes, that was to say that passionate love was bad.
The horse carriage clattered by, empty of tourists or lovers.
And the pigeon who inched closer wondered what scraps he might have,
And the rain had broken the heat and cooled the park.
And that was his love.
Quiet, cool, a refuge in a city of noise and bad air and competition.
Now the sun filtered over the West.
The homeless seemed refreshed.
What did they think back on?
What loves? What failed opportunities?
Did it matter?
He did not think the girl loved me.
As he did not love the ones who had loved him in turn.
Are we so different, in the end?
It had been a weekend of horrors and tribulation and he did not feel good about very much at all, nor trust errant feelings and less, errant words.
But there was solace in the park.
In admitting such a thing.
iv. The Margins
The poems were made difficult. The space, limited.
But thinking harder did not produce profound work.
Too often the sublime was in simple experience. The arrangement was crucial, and yet seemed, at times, pretentious.
v. Up River, Maggots
When he left it was for fear of squandering youth, of regrets, and it was done well and with clear conscience. But after that he’d lived and traveled, Far. Saw and did. Loved. Cared for children, though not his own. Inspired and was inspired. And one night they rose and arched and came together and collapsed breathless. Souls whole and happy and free for a moment. And maybe the Earth moved.
Memories are like waves…
They wash in and are lost in a white hiss.
Sometimes he thought about going back, in some capacity, to what he was becoming before. He wondered that if in the randomness of war he could be shot or blown into fragments, die, then it would be ‘Time’ and it would ‘Be alright’ and he should not, he thought, in that last violent second, have many regrets.
Save maybe one.
But those thoughts were the worm in the apple. A gnawing not his own. And he did not permit them so often now. And nor should you.
vi. The Bell
The Ice cream truck! It, alone, now, in that moment, became the object of hatred. The jangly rag was unwelcome there in the grove of death. It distracted and enticed relentlessly in a place of moist silence.
‘Fuck off down 11th and leave us, the sleeping quiet dregs of the city to our solace!’
He circles the block and comes back to torture us.
vii. Jude
You poor bastards, whose park is this? I suppose I could find out, but I don’t care enough. The anonymity is the point. No one in ten blocks know where Flanders is, or where you lie or why you died. Why should I? Why does it gnaw me?
You! Statue! You are just a testament to the mass grave of civilization, growing pains, concreted over, forgotten, failed erection overlooked. A disrespect we so contentedly provide.
A businessman reads your inscription in passing, talking on his cell phone and veers away casually. To give a shit would be unseemly. But maybe I will place a flower, picked illegally from the bush behind the homeless man, and leave it at your feet. You dejected guardian of lost wars, lost respect and lost causes. A drunk throws a football at your head and misses, laughing.
“This is a park of homeless people” says another man.
He is wrong. It is a a park of homeless souls.
viii. ‘Beautiful’ ‘Things’
Beauty was a fickle thing. Hustler Club was a block away. He was underdressed for such an occasion… and a pauper. But the red, pulsing temptations who make a living there were certainly beautiful in a sense, advertised as they were, six-stories tall and bursting. Just not the type of girl to bring home to mother. Perhaps, at least, not at first. But a living is a living. And Beautiful things were beautiful, morality, ethics, not withstanding.
ix. New York II
You’re too proud, New York.
Some pride is good, but there is an entire world, and its center is iron and the molten heart of God’s debris, not Broadway. Not you, New York.
Perhaps humility is unAmerican. I love this city. It is perhaps one of the greatest in the world. But I hate it as well. Some of the finest artists, hardworking families, creative geniuses, and diverse populations coexisting on the planet live here. And some of the worst. Speculative bankers, unscrupulous politicians and detached rich, unethical bastards ever spawned gouge the world and grow fat and arrogant from your lofty towers.
I have nothing against the wealth. I am not jealous or bitter. But men without humanity in them are monsters of the most foul breed. Endure, New York, as you have always done. Your heart is strong, your blood flows as the traffic, in ceaseless spurts, but your head is cancerous and insatiable.
Aspire not to great wealth, but great things.
