Friend.
I went by your old place on West 26th Street
Your name was no longer on the buzzer.  I pushed it anyway.
When an Asian woman answered  I knew you were gone.
Nobody coming out of the building seemed to remember you
Just goes to show.

I went by the old diner at which we used to eat
Same handwritten signs, same menus
Same old tables.
But no you.

I found it strange that the waitress remembered me but couldn't remember
The guy who'd been going there for decades.
Maybe I should have brought a photo
To spark her memory
Maybe I should have reached out to you,
Bitten the bullet and swallowed my pride
Because now the fight seems trivial
Its the rest of the stuff that seems important,

All the good stuff we shared.

People used to sew patches on old jeans and put new soles
on favorite shoes.
Modern life has changed.  We throw things out and buy new.
But some things are irreplaceable.
They are worth the effort a repair would require.
Friend.
My friend.

I remember.
Walking with you on West End Avenue.
Laughing and Laughing.
We used to go into the drug stores and try different eye creams Attempting to conceal the fatigue that comes from staying up
for days on end.

Partying
Man, did we party.

And I remember.
The different creatures we would run into
along the way.
Creatures of the night.
Mostly emotionally disturbed characters.
Running from life or running from themselves.
Some real crazies.

You remained my good friend.
A reliable person.  Something rare in life.
We would talk about the mistakes we made
and the good choices as well.
Careful never to beat ourselves up too badly.
Because sometimes, it’s hard to make the right choices.
And it’s better to laugh when you mess up.
It’s better to laugh if you can.

'brownstone of my body,' i had declared
privately my first confession. somewhat
intimate. and as my voice quivered like
name-tags on teenage trees, i hoped you
found me endearing in your brazen ways.
i come off as naive, to your unblinking gaze:
passive, unimpressed, and mostly unfazed.
my small pink feet are soft and raw against
your weathered knees. and you say my belly
is too mellow with its paper-doll creases, flesh
too easily torn by your cut-brick corners, face
too childish for your middle-aged games. but
my thighs are like your alleys, leave no space
for nonsense, is my whole as is my part, if you
can love me for my thighs, i will be content with
something along the lines of 'my brownstone
loves me for my thighs, my thighs
have no alleys and i would have it no other way' and
I would ask no question as the blossom of my tender body is
pinched between your fingers and rolled into a
tiny pink cigar, stamped out before ever being lit.
and i would never ask, is this (ever) womanhood?

Escaping memories I ran
To the setting of beginnings
In search of new encounters
A rescuer, an owner, a gentle

Word. Penn station had evolved
In years with my emotions,
Beguiling decadence lost
To opulence decay.

Pink granite covered in grime,
Glass filtering sunbeams had
Now turned light into grey,
Eerie shadows reflecting

My vanishing intentions,
Dwindling strength,
Waning hope.
The mellifluous cadence

Of alphanumeric flapping metals
That used to sooth me with dreams
Of arrivals and departures
Had been silenced for evermore.

Solari boards swapped
For liquid-crystal displays,
Even people had changed
Flaunting grimaces of disdain,

As they whispered rumours
Of terminal demolishment
To the benefit of a sporting arena
They would call The Garden.

I empathised with the unfluted
Columns of the Roman colonnade,
For I too had been deemed
Obsolete and inefficient,

A wreck no one shall retrieve,
To be suppressed, a panacea
For a collective consciousness
That would rather not see,

Turning blind eyes to me,
To cost-effective identity
Annihilation,
While Bobby freed of me

Won the New York State
Championship
At Poughkeepsie.

streets that once sang salvation
capricious with their mercury cracks
promised a sunlit city of night
to charismatic tramps

starlet girls drag men into motel rooms
desperate to make a buck
cafe drifters fumble for broken cigarettes
young harlots curse their luck

neon upstreet outlaws
don't hang around this part of town
just poor people's shadows and ambulance drivers
drifting around

the subway poet's disillusioned
didn't find his crystal jukebox queen
and despite his desperate, lovestruck words
the city is onerous to please

...see me walk in the club.
Man,
They say,

"Is he for real?"

*******,
I ain't dumb!

Get out the car
and I walk in the club
The walk isn't far
not just a walk,

just, just, just
-just enough

Feelin' it on me, lights and a crowd
doors open up see, -face hit with that loud?

Get out my car
and I walk into my club
check on the til

*******,

-this just ain't enough!
Ferrari, lake house, payroll and payments...
girls drop the attitude, I'm keeping you off pavements.

Now walk with me,

get close
no,

you ******* stay closer,
all these tricks here watchin'
now they see you as a grosser.
You throwing money down?
You know my ******* gonna take it
music is so loud,
now ******* you been breaked-in.

Tappin' that *** like Tappan Zee Bridge,
my girls made a connection and that's what it is.
See me get up, see me walk out this club
I got your whole paycheck, -maybe that's just enough?

Ferrari, lake house,
-and I own a club.

Living the dream, got a look and it's loud
I know you looking at me, I stand out in a crowd.

Gettin' in my Ferarr
as I leaving the club
Got a wife, got some kids

-cause,

-******* I ain't dumb.

Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
man
Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
man
Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
man
Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
Check your starring *****,
cause ******* I ain't done.

Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club.

I don’t know why I keep coming down here
Into the dark abyss of these tunnels.
It’s like something’s calling out to me
Guiding my feet without my permission
Like I’m just along for the ride.

Water drips down from the lower level of the 82nd street station—
Downtown B and C train.
I’m in a cave with dripping stalactites
But instead of awe and wonder
All I’m bracing myself for
Is absolute collapse.

The train roars in
Ba Dum Ba Dum Ba Dum
Slowly making its way to a stop
With a whine of its wheels locking into place
And a screech of the doors opening, protesting all the way.

I know I shouldn’t get inside
Should walk the twenty blocks
In sub-zero temperatures
Where at least the light will shine—
But something beckons me from the darkness.

As the train slowly begins to move
I see the red and blue lights waiting, watching, outside the window
The apparent heterochromia of the monster that lives and breathes and is these tunnels.

I’m suddenly sure that I’ll never return.