Another Night Here
Yelling in the Hallway
Can’t make all the words
Never can when they are drunk
A knife was involved
And a chain of some sort
Cops come
They are pleading their cases
Pleading their sides
Cops patiently listening
He pulled knife on me
She’s a *****
Sir please calm down
He’s a drunk
He stole my chain
Now I get the picture
I’m peeking out
I’m a peeker
Goes on for a bit
Ma’am Did he hit you
He pulled a knife
I was cutting something
Sir did you pull a knife on her
No
He threatened me
Did you threaten her
I threatened to throw her out
It’s his place
When this is figured out things calm down
Cops leave
She stays
She just wanted to be heard
She just wanted to be loved
He just wanted to be left alone
Don’t we all.
Don’t we all.

So tired
of living
in a concrete jungle
Filled with too many people
who are nothing
but strangers.

At its zenith, perhaps in the first half
of the 1st millennium   AD, Teotihuacan
was the largest city in the pre-Columbian
Americas, with a population estimated
at 125,000 or more, making it at least the sixth
largest city in the world during its epoch.

Apart from the pyramids, Teotihuacan
    is also anthropologically significant
for its complex,  multi-family
          residential compounds,
the Avenue of the Dead &   its vibrant murals
that have been exceptionally  well-preserved.
Additionally,      Teotihuacan exported
         fine obsidian tools that are found
                     throughout Mesoamerica.

The city is thought to have been established
around 100 BC, with major monuments
continuously under construction until
about AD 250. The city may have lasted
          until sometime between the 7th &
8th centuries AD, but its major monuments
were sacked & systematically burned around AD 550.

Teotihuacan began as a religious center
in the Mexican Highlands around the first century AD.
It became the largest and most populated
center in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Teotihuacan was even home to multi-floor
apartments &     condominium compounds
                        built to accommodate
a            large & growing          population.
The term Teotihuacan (or Teotihuacano) is also used for the whole civilization and cultural complex associated with the site.

Will Rogers used to say he never met a man he didn’t like.
I admire people like him.
But I’m not one of them.
I meet people I don’t like every day.
It just happens.

Little Grudges, my friend Sal used to say.
“You have a lot of little grudges.”

My neighbor for example,  banging the trash can lids
Outside my window
Two in the morning
Not that it woke me up
But I get up to look
Peek down there
Naturally nosey person that I am
And he’s pushing pushing
What in hell is he pushing at that hour?

So, Will Rogers I am not.
I probably wouldn’t have liked him either.

There's hushed aesthetic
to store signs passed on sidewalks
Empty neon words.

And suddenly
Here I was
In the concrete jungle
Surrounded by prada totting hyenas
And cologne soaked pumas
Immersed in their talk boxes
Making enough noise to wake up a hibernating bear

And there I was
In the midst of the chaos
A scared and lost kitten
Over stimulated by the screeches and smells
And roaring machinery
Yearning to be back in the woods
Back to the silence
Where you can faintly hear the flowers blooming and the bees buzzing

But here I am
In the concrete jungle
Learning to love the prada totting hyenas
And cologne soaked pumas
Learning to be grateful
For the silence that I endure once in a while

The concrete jungle
My home
My new adventure
A kitten who is turning into a lioness.

We wear this city on our feet
Planting our roots with each step
Our shadows

cast shapes of ancient oak trees stretching out over old squares at daybreak
We grow here

with the spirit of buildings past,
present and rising like a staircase to heaven in the distance,
the plumes of white smoke from their rooftops as burnt offerings for incense,
spires for steeples,
the bundled masses of people moving beneath as the calloused soles
of our feet pounding the pavement,
Our congregation

seated in reverant silence on the R-Line hissing to a stop
Their hushed prayers filing out from within to bring the reclaimed sidewalks of Fayetville Street back to life to join this pilgramage
They march

downtown toward Capitol
holding signs for disarmament
They bar-hop through Glenwood toasting to deliverance
They move in a blur of faces that become us,
Rush at all hours through our veins
Cross our hearts and keep us breathing,
Moving
wearing the city on our minds
like the greyest pieces of their winter sky and the way it caps the peaks of Mount PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo like hoodies over our heads
We assume monk-like appearances
in robes color-coded by season- from blue collar sweaters to cold hard sweat
We'll wear their city until we're worn out and wet,

We'll wear their dreams at night
like streetlamps flickering on beneath wired telephone poles carrying conversations about each one as far south as Florida, fears unspoken, made visible
on iron park benches too cold to sit on at this hour
We'll keep walking

and wear this city like backpacks over our shoulders

under the watch of their heavens,
the skyline
a glowing testament
of every step taken
toward someplace higher.

Today I saw a girl
She was walking
On a residential street
She looked out of place
But I knew her face
It’s a small town
So, of course, I knew her face
Of course, I know her name
She’s the Jones girl

She’s a teenager
I don’t know what she was doing
Probably doing whatever it is
Teenagers do
On a Sunday afternoon
In a small town

Platinum white hair
Piercings up her ear
Future up in the air
Scene and emo wristbands
And a graphic tee
Probably not from Hot Topic
Because Hot Topic ain’t so hot here

Here’s the thing
She’d be the It Girl
If it weren’t for her acne
If it weren’t for her height
If it weren’t for her weight
If it weren’t for her interests
If it weren’t for her hobbies
If it weren’t for everything about her
But her name
And her age

She deserves better
I don’t like her
Not personally
But she does deserve better
She deserves the city streets
There, and only there,
Can she can be who she wants to be

And if she can’t?
Then there’s no place I want to be
Not one at all
Because I want to be
Where she,
Where we all can be,
Who we want to be

Motorcycles rumbling by
As overhead an airplane flies,
Thundering and humming.

Sirens wailing somewhere near.
Mosquitoes whining in your ear.
A grumbling train is coming.