“You’re a relic,” said the video game,
“no one reads you now.”
“Not true” said the novel. “And anyhow,
at least I have characters
who speak and think and feel.
No one could believe that your
“characters” are real.”
“I offer blood and action; an opportunity
to ****. We know that’s what the people want.
It’s a pressing need I fill,”
the video game replied.
“What makes you think your wars and crimes
played out in pixelation
will satisfy the players’ lust
for quick assassination? They will tire
of virtual gore and want to test their skills
in a real arena that offers far more thrills.”
The novel’s pages fluttered; she indignantly continued:
“In my world there’s ambiguity; it forces them to think
about how there’s no black and white,
except for pages and for ink.
My stories stir compassion,
reflection, empathy. Your crooks and soldiers all act the same;
where’s their personality?
You know you’re just a pinball game
dressed up as a cartoon.”
The video game tried to think
of how to answer back... But soon
it realized that she was right. And sadly thought about the terror
that it had wreaked from coast to coast
and how it was a grievous error.
It filled the bathtub up with water
and dropped itself straight in. And that, my friends, is where
this little story should begin.

I will not run from you, Fear.
I will stand still and stay right here.
Your yawning chasm of the unknown
is no more than a dark corner of my mind when I’m alone.
I choose to close my eyes and recall
what I’ve faced before, and how I did not fall.
And that I’m not alone, and never will be—
for lonely souls like me are plentiful,
and friendly.

As the winds grow stronger and the snow falls heavy,
as the oceans rise and pour over the levee,
as the sweltering heat makes us sleep in the day
and work in the night, I’ll take your hand and say:
Dance with me in the darkness, until the futile dawn;
sing while I play guitar, we don’t have long.
Read your poems to me while we have a little time;
we have no future, but we still have rhyme.
Let’s drink a toast, or two, to what might have been,
and what once was, before our time turned grim
Let’s plunder the pharmacy, or eat the magic mushroom;
don’t go into the night easy, but don’t rage at the moon.
Let’s savor all the moments, as our destiny arrives.
Let’s not waste another minute of our precious time alive.

This place is a museum now; this great hall where my father stood.
Here he waited on line with all the rest. He waited for admission.
He was dressed in his best with a few dollars in his pocket,
and the address of his sister and her husband in New York.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother, Helen, was native, first generation born upon these shores.
My father was a laborer; the quarries and mines had made him strong.
His years in Scotland plus his native Irish brogue
was baffling at first to those Ellis Island clerks.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My Dad found work building a bridge high above the waters reach.
He started out a near illiterate but slowly learned to read
From discarded copies of the New York Daily News.
He met my mom at an Irish dance.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother’s voice was all New York; a dialect of English speech.
She loved her numbers, and clerked for Met Life, but she may have longed to teach.
Instead she sat with me in our small kitchen
Teaching me my numbers as our dinner was prepared.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

For those of you who have heard me speak
And found my own accent hard to place.
I am a little of old New York and a little of a fair green place.
My American voice is but the echoed music of my race.