Twisting and turning
Speeding and slowing
Through the labyrinth of streets
Braving the noise, the crowds
Boxed in by tall buildings
The bike rushes as if to escape-
Suffocated, nearly strangled.
It climbs a flyover
Higher, over the lowly lot
A blooming Gulmohar
By the side, smiling
And then – a patch of sky –
Bright, white
And farther, a deep blue.
This particular
shifting of the rain, I am
just in time for it.
Lemon-drop lamp
and its wavering life
reflected in the chai.
Scrawlings, backwards,
in the glass, in the sun,
downtown escalator
Red clouds catching sun,
the hole at Sixth Avenue
dark in minutes.
“Red cells save lives”
reads the bus for the blood drive–
black letters on white.
It’s happened again
The ambulance man
he sees me, my northbound bus,
then runs to the west.
Gasoline can, spilled
then righted, five yards away
sunny-hot pavement.
Yes, Lloyd Building,
Yes, Int’nl Teriyaki,
Stay, feeble sunshine!
Five pigeons, rooftop
one does a dance while the rest
perch, vigilant.
Does anybody
think, of this old bench, and its
conversation husks?
“I can’t stand the rain”–
At the back of my mind
Lies an undigested piece of thought -
That I have to leave my home tomorrow.
My bike carries me through these streets
Along the familiar scenes, pauses
At the places so known to me -
The coffeshops, bookshops, my haunts -
The libraries, the gardens, my previous office
The corners where I have hung around,watching
The milling crowds, a few faces recognized and nodded at.
Faces from my past, faces that have grown old with mine.
The city has grown, its roads wider and cleaner
Trees and corner shops have given way
To malls and multistoreyed monstrosities.
I try hard to remember what were there before
The old, tile-roofed houses replaced
In the bright yet seemingly so dim evening lights, the crowded city's empty.
It is lonely here without you. And yet without you I wouldn't have noticed that.
Funny how the city oh-so crowded can be so hollow.
Empty.
Void.
Blank.
A white canvas.
(Opportunities?)
You overflow all that space with so much vivacity. So much life. And love and warmth and playfulness! So much of you takes over so very little of this.
And lack of you is a surprise.
It completely surpasses me that I'm just about to hit a lamppost, that I'll crash into people walking the opposite way.
But the realization of this absence causes me to lift my sight, making me aware, perceptive.
It's hard to realize, but it is needed.
one foot after the other
feeling the dreams that fall under my feet
my heart and brain in your hands
feeling the city envelope my everything
the lights and noises filling my cracks
lifting me up
throwing my dreams into the clouds
cart-wheeling through the pain
screaming through the happiness
giving you the world
and wanting nothing in return
that is of desperation
to be loved
to love someone
the light that falls on my skin
it only stays because you allow it
I am a city
the greatest of all
But just like the others
the greatest will fall
Messages around me
coming in, going out
Solving people's problems
is what I'm about
My powers are fading
I'm tortured by quakes
It makes me unhappy
my sanity shakes
Now people know me
but in a few years
they only will know me
as "drowned in his tears"
when i read translation, i poke around the words,
not at them, guessing at a reality not hinted at
but encoded by some prisoner from another world—
nobody's perfect; but i relish the quest for the
peculiar nature of some original writer, un-
known to us but through his function: images
thoughts perhaps of trees cows judgings ravings—
oh i'm an impotent feeling self-important fool—
consume the country, become one with it, i say to myself!
and becoming one with it belch and forget it!
no more nervous city twisting and coiling of coffee
and smokes, no more routines, schedules or lack of them!
what the fuck!— i'm internally shaken by these
desperate thoughts, my hand sticks in my throat,
they say there's this city ordinance against wandering
I'm guilty
Ignorance of the law is no excuse but I've seen NO PARKING signs
NO SPITTING signs NO SMOKING signs lots of other NO signs
but I've never seen a NO WANDERING sign
yet
thank god
the dictionary says wandering is: a roaming at will; traveling
I say it's also a way of life
open to the world
like a sea anemone to a rich green wave
I absorb the flowers and the faces and the words
I devour the multitude, swallow the universe
and all and everything of it becomes myself
the wonder of the world is my most essential food
my absolute and alchemical body would starve without it
Screeching NYC
macaws
clothesline to oblivion
Move to Hollywood
get up in the morning
jump into your overalls
chop down your own fruit trees
I walking on the railroad ties
I am on your legs sometimes
I am using your eyes
to see
The mussle shells cracked and jammed
Between the pilings
Father to see
Blackberry vines naked and rusty
Pushing up through concrete and
Around the fence posts
Enterweaving earth and sky father
Pushing back the city
With your legs and with your star eyes
With your hands of rock and moss
Laying her to seed in crimson sage
Again making her to seed the highway.
She was a country girl
With a city heart
A city mind
And a city soul
She wanted nothing more than to get away
But the people around her would never understand why