a headline, a title, an instant self-commissioned
to live on, sponsored by these dying times,
a new poem, a different rabbit hole, a reflective surface
of in-between spaces, that separates letters, I am
that man, charter member, a voting citizen of the

The City That Never Sometimes Sleeps

the new traffic patters, i.e. no traffic at all,
messes up circadian rhythms, no trucks honking,
even the ambulances silenced, asking what’s the rush,
this year the cicadas, them too, took the seventh year off,
the strange silence wierded them out,
so they sheltered in place

our device, informs, it has been employed
20 hours 42 minutes of the last twenty four cycle,
don’t disagree, wonder only where the heck I was for
the 3 hours 18 minutes unaccounted

wasn’t sleeping, of that ‘rest’ assured,
must have been unconsciously
writing poetry, a voyage to my
beloved holy dark, where nightly
he reimagines when things were
normal and empty streets were
a refreshing sight, a welcome change,
not a harbinger of the visible separation
between the living and the dead

up at your regularly scheduled night sky patrol,
the colorful clock says 2:47 and
dark skies confirm which 2:47 it is,
for flecks of blackened peppery light exude at this hour,
a time period for former lovers, those old writes enfolded, enveloped,
hiding an active poem volcano spewing bare feet words in clouds of
kidskin soft velveteen cumulus, fleece-comforting slippers of poems

there are half started poems waiting, more than one, triplets in fact,
waiting to be born in the time of pandemic, thinking quietly,
will they emerge healthy and living and grow up to be adults
contributing to society, additives to the engine oil of human living

but the old familiar, dissatisfaction with quality control leaves them
unfinished, poet lurches from dead roses head hanging, a new blues,
disease as an economic and societal differentiation, that you hope,
believe, poems that in due course, all will emerge, for better or for worse,

poetry birthed in the time of pandemic

the city of new york, where I was birthed and will die, a city of
tall buildings, tall tales, short attention spans there is but one nighttime moving automobile observed in a city that never sleeps but now hides blanketed in weariness of trepidation of what are the

well known unknown possibilities in the time of pandemic

and you wonder in this new, different quietude if poems can be born
with birth defects and survive, breathing on a ventilator till they can
breathe by their own lungs, or were they perma-infected on a supermarket trip, a walk by the East River, a pizza delivery man, even

if inspired by a decade-lover, next, in bed, in the time of pandemic

waving to grandchildren in their second story window, you on the street, keeping them safe from you, a modern Auschwitz train station where they separated, the we-useless out, children and their parents, safe in a barbed wire atmosphere, a demarcated world, where some billion of brimming droplets of tears are stillborn

stillborn poems, or perhaps just poems-in-waiting, to still be

born in a time of pandemic


3:29am Sunday March 22, Twenty Twenty
New York City, the epicenter, crossroads

oh no!

another fateful overlooked poem title,
ensconced in a message not initially gripped tight enough,
the entitling command, the wish, this commish-on,
angry for having been ignored, overlooked,
calls the poet out, what, a deadline missed again?  

again.

an inherent compliment contradiction,
the well wisher, wanting an enlarged heart, like mine,
is wise in the ways of double meanings,
knows full well, that the enlarged heart is burdensome,
that weight of those afflicted with enlarged hearts,
walk with the stooped bent of responsibility.

so I write and weep, weep and write,
what a thing to wish for, defer it, deter it,
and yet here, I affirm it!

for in my possess is a sure and certain knowledge,
that a new born girl, has surely already stretched the measurements
of Pradip’s own heart’s boundaries, no wishing necessary,
a natural occurring phenomenon, a first grandchild grasped,
raised up to the light on high, a chemical reaction, an eclipse so
when the body’s brain commands it minions,
ordering messengers, sent to every province, to every *****,
piercing every cell’s shell with a kingly commandment scroll:

heart! all body parts!
grow, enlarge, engorge, for a fearsome wonderful injection of love arrives, a new baby will heartily enlarge, make room for more.

the wonderful burden of love.



<>

a commission satisfied. perhaps I will sleep tonight...

Feb. 10, 2020
2:04 pm