this trip
homeward bound,
riding the Q (subway) train
from the messy grime of a
never fully repossessed
cesspool misnamed as
Times Square,

to our apartment
near but yet far,
a poem short & sweet was
born complete, on an 8 minute
fast track victory lap to periodic
successful urban planning,

that even and
even though
with and/of
which
no speedy highly
disrespectful witch
on a broomstick,
nor a midnight traffickless
auto trip,
could ever hope
to compete
<>
roses red, violets blue,
all the passengers, revelry tired,
both becostumed & be plained,
Hallowed eve festivities
again, lesser than expected,
life be, eager awaited
legal moment of crazy-
-inness-inward-permissed,
never quiet or as good
as hoped,

we tired riders
all look worn from the
aggregated
infidelities of a
a hoped-for
missing-out happier life

nearing midnight,
the new immigrants,
in subway platform
patrolling,
offer us candy for sale,
their toddler children,
beside them
at this midnight hour,
to drive home
the desperate willingness to

survive in a city oft hostile

no longer eager to be
beacon beckoning
to the world, we rethink
to our minded selves,
our Statue of Liberty
engraved invite:

"Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door”
<>
we exit the underground rout(e)
and the walk from subway to front door
is another 8 minute travelogue segment,
we cover the quarter mile on foot,
covering a skimp of distance that
our urban transport  
of many mileage covered
in the same units of minutes
in flyer miles

<>
late at night,
we walk fast, with eyes wide,
our lives to hide,
from the risks of the
unpredictable
when the street parade
of stragglers
gives not the comfort of a
rowdy crowdy,
and the existence of crime
is not
entirely fabricated

<Did>
I offer short and sweet,

Oh well I only misled,
the trip 16 minutes
and the poem
in my head,
complete emerged
with minutiae attending
et. al.,
in far far less mini~minutes,
for it was
a product of
silent back labor,
from first staggering
screaming pain
to
successful unexpected birth
that can take maybe
minutes five,
to mentally survive
plus,
physically complete the birth,
introduce this poem to life.
when the photos of my mined mind
make images from negatives
into words,:

collect, sort and report the
output picturesque
now in colors black & white,
of a trip from a Broadway theater
through to a high rise building
astride the river
which gives me
a theoretical cleaner space to breathe
<>
rather than short and sweet?
I really reseed,
redeed it as/is:
not too long and a tad
bittersweet

a night in the life of
the mixture of successes and
failures of our troubled world
in
living technicolor,
a few seconds of film
of which one could fairly,
and in fairness
bless/write/curse/
each sight
twice,
uttering:

”mine eyes have seen the glories,
as all come to look for America”

this accidental status, we are all very busy
to be on the lookout for, the odds are not
terrible compared to the lottery, a modest
1 in 300 million, but it’s an easy buy and bust, just a two dollar bill, two lousy singles,
for a legal purchased fantasy that’s
cheaper than a cup of coffee

but finding love is miserable murderous
murmuring mess, can be very expensive, and
exhausting too, physically and mentally,you’re swimming in shallow waters tween razor rocky coral, begging for a slice of your double sized portion of anguish

And yet,
can’t be that hard,
it is a mega billion busyness,
with no cure or satisfactory vaccine,
and the randomness can drive you
mad, make panting to-pack it in,
until your spidey sensnses tingling,
a ketchup and bitter herbs mixture,
and you’re sweating, and it’s 100% anticipation of the well known (!)
unknown risks, this easy
walkway~path in the woods,
leads you on, with marvelous views,
even babbling brooks, till you find
you’ve climbed halfway way up a mountain and to make it to the top,
it’s a rocky boulder strewn,
ankle and heart twisting road that
takes you to the grandest place and plan

oh but, boy,
where the view of the worldscape is only
fantastico, but the only way back down involves throwing yourself into a
quarry pit, full of dangerous chemicals,
that burn scars into your inside parts, invisible wounds so untreatedbly unspeakably bad and incurable
again and again,

and you say stupid things like
I can’t help myself,
what’s a matter daddy,
just want some sugar in my bowl,
and when your neck gets broke,
and it’ll take incredible processing
to just get you to walk again,
and yet
the single
odiferous scent, that amuse bouche on
your lips, and you’ll do it all again for
once monte carlo throw of the dice,
because the odds ain’t that bad,
everbody lives somebody
and given the billions of opportunities walking in just this planet,
even one in a million sounds
pretty good,
even,


very…fair