The Editor

Late in office,
sour coffee taste
the single constituent
of his yellow bloodstream,
The Editor.

Way up high,
72nd floor.

The city's twinklers mocking.

Life is ours, outside,
where explorers dare,
not inside your
cubicle.

That word, cubicle,
a sugar-substitute for
coffin.

Another 12+ day.
Empty apartment waiting.

But that no matter.

Old news, her scent,
almost unnoticeable
except for the lavender hand-soap.

On the desk, a manuscript.
A child's coloring book,
vibrant, original word verses.

The older man lived, loved words,
An editor now, by trade.

Once, he baby-dreamed.

Shaping moments in the lives
of thousands, with tastings of,
with his words.

The answer given, graded, long ago.
Offered a choice,
outrageous misfortune elected,
the arrow taken, his was the
"or not to be."

Instead,
on the desk, a manuscript.
a child's coloring book,
vibrant, original word verses.

An unsolicited gift.
By the hundreds, they arrived.

To his desk, the mail room delivered,
trained to snicker by prior generations,
at this lowly assignment.

This one different.

Original, raw,
full of ingredient-courage that
posed the questions
we all ask, answered,
in a nouveau riche way,
not a poseur-way.

Well, so well, he knew Brutus's words:

We at the height are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.^

His tide, his high tide, missed,
gone out

Instead at the heights, on the 72nd floor,
in the shallows, the bad miseries of
chances missed, ventures lost,
his own words, measured down,
never up,
yet he floated on a sea of others,
drowning but never dying.

On the desk, a manuscript.
a child's coloring book,
vibrant, original word verses,
a young author, unaware,
his gifts could rule the world.

Just another submission.

No one would notice,
the missed fortune,
if it were lost at sea.

Just another tsunami body,
thousands of worn words
suffocating, still born,
still dead.

Just another Brutus omission.

Another tide, washing in,
another washout day,
except for the
coloring book, someone else's
on his desk.

Dear Sir/Madam.
Thank you for bringing your manuscript to our attention.
We receive many unsolicited submissions and at this time, we are unable to...


Yours truly,

Some are artists,
Some are house painters.
Some craft, other just tidy up
the empty studios of the real.
Did the windows in his office open?
Somewhere his best effort,
paper tarnished by metallic dust,
sweat garnished,
vanquishing tears bookmarks,
a homeless one.

No place to return to,
for to be homeless,
words had to have had a home.

Whose?
His.

^ Julius Ceasar
(IV.ii.269–276)

I don't show her all the poems
I write,
Because if I did,
I would be picking up
***** crying tissues
From every room.

I don't show her all the poems
I write,
Because if I did,
My neck would be sore,
My back twisted,
My arms black n blue
Where she alternatively
Hugged me too hard or punched me harder,
For making her sadmadhappy,
Or just one of
all of the above.

I don't show her all the poems
I write,
Because some are meant for her to read,
Après les deluge,
After I'm gone,
Safely but sadly,
Out of her reach,
And the man who always carries
Tissues for her,
Has finally
Run out of stock.

written on a fall Sunday, many years ago (2010), after attending the New York City Ballet, walking home through Central Park, New York City*

In my sweet city,
city where I bore
my first breath,
city where I'll be laid down
to my perma-rest:

the hues of my life
are city pastels,
colorful shades of asphalt
and concrete gray,
interspersed with the
speckled glitter of
sidewalk fruit refuse and
57 Heinz varieties of the
potpourri of human creation

this color schema
is the coda of my
urbanized DNA,
though product unique of my
Father and Mother,
I have been
genetically modified
in the laboratory
of the streets
of my sweet city

mid-September,
the city's temperature is
unmodulated,
alternating currents of a
tortuous halfway tween
summer's sweaty heat
and winter's capable chill

these concerto variations of
the air outside
depend on the
angle of the sun and
how it penetrates the

individualized charcoal filter
of grit and dirt, that is
a NY city's dweller necessary,
necessary filter to survive,

this filter,
the viewing lens
of the lives surrounding,
is our individualized seal,
displayed upon the shield,
our city passport,
our driving license to live,
the municipality deems
we must carry
with us everywhere

In my sweet city
two rivers(1) in bay meet,
ceding control to the
Atlantic's penultimate ocean's parenting,
but not before,
each river channels deep cuts across the
the city's personality
and mine

city of towers, majestic n' fallen,
city of babbling tongues,
symphony of languages,
your ceaseless movements
are pirouettes of emotions.

your people, my people,
are one people
tous membres de notre
corps de ballet,
see us dancing
upon the rooftops,
in bamboo jungles (2)
on museum roofs
amidst the treetops of our
parks, central to our lives

on this island city,
grew up bounded in physic,
yet unfettered in spirit,
periodically to escape
we took the
train to the plane(3)
across ocean and fruited plain
carrying our peculiar filter,
seeing the world through
our city's eyes

built on volcanic rock and
the timbers of ships discarded,
silt and refuse of Gen's past,
burial grounds n' cemeteries (4)
of slaves and immigrants,
my sweet city was born in
granite gestalt and schist,
paved over with pave tears
of millions of dreams,
some, realized, most defeated,

In my sweet city,
where I'll be laid down
to my perma-rest,
this body and soul,
these poems, these words,
will be one more striated layer
to be torn down, dug up,
built on,

and in this soil
I will attend,
your arrival most welcome,
and in the shade of our hades,
our filters discarded,
our passports unrenewed,
for historical purposes
our bones and papers, reviewed,
each other we will regale,
with our sweet city's tales.

September 2010