From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda said Why does God always have to be a man?
I said He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!

Oil and vinegar,
Sugar and spice;
everything looks nice.
Your wit and charm,
sends long walks of
harmony into a world
of a never ending
façade.
Put's on his best smile,
but he will always be
a broken man.
Stay's at home,
I try my best to
console him and he
Put's his head high,
and thinks no one will
notice.
On the way, he imagines
reactions, that someday
he will have a perfect world,
made the way he wants it.
Making plans for Mikey,
to make sure he's a happy man.

I always imagined
I'm on the beach,
watching the waves roll in from your long hair booth,
seagulls flying on a sailing ship,
o it flies between the two of us
who are running around
looking for *****
on the shore
which turns out
to be close to the beach.
My lips,
so salty sweat
and sea water add happiness there.
I saw the sun rising
and setting in our e y e s,
which turned out to be a s i g n,
I needed to learn
to love the lost dusk
and also the dawn that came.
I saw the fishermen
who came
                   and then left
and that was my
h e   art
that was anchored in the old wharf which turned out to be quiet and
l               one            ly,
and was your  h   e   art  there too?
I always imagined
we forget names,
forget places,
but don't forget to go home.
Or perhaps, this is another option.
I always imagined
we were in a house in a cool village, where the rice fields were green and wide,
so vast that our l  ove was never measured.
The chirping of birds will always be heard
and answered so s w e e t l y
from tree branches
whose leaves are thick and shady; every time you
                            and
                                    I wake up.
From the windows and ventilation aisles,
sunlight e n t e r s to warm our cold bodies shivering all night
because of the
r
               a
                                i
   n
and      
         s     t    o   r   m   s
that never subside,
even though we have spent the night with various kinds of hugs
that are not the same.
Even I always imagined
you are there
when I imagined good things,
maybe when you are not by my side and I feel it is not something that feels good.
I always imagined
that I really love you.
And you really love me too.

O, I always imagined it all
when I see you smile every time
I have a bad day, and you said, everything
      must
         be
           easy
             for
              you
               to
                 go
                   through.

I imagined that, while writing this poem.

Stories older than kings,
these exist as stories told with old ones,
imaginings of messengers,
seers saying this is the vision, made as plain
as pi, point, plumb, line, and wall,

man, made in the imagination
man imagines, and affirms,
this I die to know, I am made
to be a doer of this,
listen

I lay dormant
Subdued but in whole
I manage my being in stasis
At peace, I am cradled by the light
The long and gentle fingers nestled into the ether
A lengthy slumber is ahead of me
What comfort may it bring?

Interesting how,
They say to stop daydreaming
Stop imagining and living in your fantasies,
When those are the only things
That have given me the courage and hope
To get where I am now
And stay here

At which point in vivisect ​
of the physical body
do we parse in twine
the real and the imagined
self? Some point soon
muscle must cede to
hedged bets in extraspace,
wish upon itself mercy.

In My Mind’s Eye
The images pass by

I can let them simply fly
If my will I don’t apply

OR

With purpose that I claim
I can imagine with an aim

Create my new designs
And break from life’s confines

For mind’s pattern - freshly made
Is with matter overlaid

Use the eye within your mind
And prosperity you’ll find