Can't see a thing, in the blackness
Of the megabus windows
Curled up like a rabbit
The woman next to me and I
We slumber so hard
Dust in my eye
I remind myself to be grateful
For my life.

Plotting, crafting, contemplating
I make long winded videos
About mishaps from late nights
Trying to nod at the present
Forget the past
Not chase the future.

Tomorrow
A room, hearts, words
Eyes, dreams, love
This is not last year
Lost in Brooklyn until 8am, everyone insecure, trying to release
No, I am a different me.

It pains me to hear so little
And it pains me to be disciplined
But my ladies and I, we paint our dreams into the sky
Fearful I am full of horseshit
Or people see me as a southern little fool
But my crinoline skirt and I,
We waltz away.

This isn't for you and it's not for him
Or him or him
It's for the thrill we feel the first time we see who we have always wanted to see looking back at us in the mirror.

And by that, I mean a daring, unique
Fulfilled, ambitious, goddess
Me.

When I went to New York
I felt something change
Though the feeling was foreign
It wasn't so strange

When I stepped on the ground
And picked up my feet
I felt I was meant for
Those rough city streets

When I was with you
I felt something less
We used to be natural
Before we confessed

But now I have found
That we too have changed
We used to be natural
Before we were strange

The wind blew cold
Our hearts were warm
Past buildings old
We found our form

And through the streets
We found a pace
moving our feet
in that foreign place

We were not told
We'd grow to seek
The wind blown cold
Across a cheek

But even so
Things aren't the same
We did not leave
Quite as we came

I’m picturing these two deities
sharing a loft just off of Madison Avenue,
maybe near an F-train subway station.
Naturally, the neighbors are complaining
of glass shattering bleeding screams
and thick, throbbing scents of charred hair
penetrating the floors above and below
while Trent Reznor’s trademark chain in the breeze voice
blares “I WANNA ******* LIKE AN ANIMAL”
from some speaker system seemingly embedded
in the trembling walls turned all the way up to “*******.”

Opening the door to reprimand the two,
the landlord is shocked
to find thick, juicy molten stains
of red wine and blood pulsating a putrid perfume
akin to petrol mixed with cinnamon sweat
as shards of plates and glasses glisten
across the kitchen and living room
while the duo erupts
into a carnal carnival of frenzied roller-coaster screams
as Kali plucks out a rib of Dionysus to lick and gnaw
and while her runaway train hips derail against his—
he stuffs out a cigar against her shoulder
despite blindfolded eyes and ankles handcuffed
to the hissing oven
while she shoves shrooms dipped in acid
down his throat
simultaneously sniffing the remaining white powder rocks
from under his nose.

The burning wild eyes of both beings slam
against their skulls--
exploding pupils cartwheel with each ******.  
The landlord cries, tears teetering the steak knife's edge
of maniacal hyena glass shattering laughter
and wrist-slitting sadness
until both beings ******
a mushroom cloud volcano blast piercing souls & hearts
bleaching away reality in a reverse black hole super nova
just past Park Ave.

When you get there, to the frozen apple’s core,
climb the first hill that you see. Tall one,
floored in rock a-glitter, breaching the noon frost
at the center. Horizon’s white-hot gleaming.
It’s quiet here. A flock of somethings and someones has
built these lines together. Not a barn, nor cathedral either.
The beams vibrate squirrel and chickadee. Be.
Be still in the ice, and their voices will come down
to shiver your pen across a new page.

In the city of hustle and horn, they gather under.
They are the students and the teachers, the movers
and the moved. They are the mothers, the marrow of
this reef concrete. They sustain. On track, on train, kneel
before their black-clad unseen brilliance, cloistered in this tedium,
zipped and snapped up in fleece-lined neoprene like it’s the end.
They alone can stretch and see how it almost always is.
Only those with breath pressed up to the raucous edge
can see the darkness depart for sunrise.

****** city lamps
dreams deferred, dissolved
bloodied and blurred—a mess
of twinkle, small from on high hill.
Brooklyn, heathens still wrapped
in the sacred vestments, bought
from the surplus stores of faith.
Blowing unceremonious smoke
from their windows, they refract
so many distant, hope-stained glints.
Ten thousand single-serve trinities
in every squint run molten. Together,
then apart. Blink one, blink many.
The lamps of the city ***** my eyes.

it was the
summer
of 13

when a city
consumed in a
Cronut crazed
heat wave

amped
the tenderloin

slicing the underbelly
of Hell's Kitchen

packing meat for
Russian oligarchs
pouring fistfuls
of petrol rubles
down the
thirsty gullets
of glutinous
developers

their distended
bellies welling
with aching
avarice
from an
extended
stay at an
All You Can Eat
zero interest
smorgasbord
courtesy of
Uncle Sam’s Diner
somewhere off the
West End

getting fat
on the land
reclaimed
and rebuilt
on the dust
and detritus
of an expired
Great Society

Bloomie's metropolis
rising on the rubble
of razed neighborhoods....

the vertical leaps
shooting ever upward
the heady windows
framing portraits
of endless replication
offering the amenities
of the vain comfort
found in ghettos of
soulless high rises
and the billowing
gray perspective
of blanched out
street cafes
brewing $9 lattes
and big box
boutiques busy
busking the
latest rage
of sweat repelling
yoga mats and
wearable apps

America’s Mayor
Giuliani paved the way
he arrested all
the squeegee men
confiscated their Windex
dumped it down
the sewers and filled all
vacancies at Rikers

a year after Sandy
rolled up the Hudson
breaching the banks
of West Street
licking the streets
clean of urban
flotsam the
surging boom
bloomed

Bloomie bankrolled
a red carpet
for his global
fraternity of
plutocrats
unleashing a
tsunami of
shekels

washing away
the fading
memories of
Captain Sully’s
cool headed
lunch pail
heroism proving
that 727’s can
walk on water
was now passe

Lou Reed
left town
the wild side
monetized by
the belching
banality of
Urban Hipsters

millennial
babes in toy land
embarked on an endless
shopping spree
where credit limits
never expire and
giddy narcissism
greased with entitlement
orders up room service
as the next course
in this endless
movable feast

Music Selection
Philip Glass
The Hours



9/8/13
NYC
jbm

It is the waiting which
makes people so vaguely uncomfortable.
So much so that
I think we all start to pretend
(as hard as we can)
that we are the only ones.

Or perhaps not the waiting.
But the lack of control it conveys
ushered in like a grey balloon  swathed in ugly red wool
and there is nothing I can do except to stare at the ceiling paint
peeling faintly slowly carelessly
to wherever old ceiling paint goes

Because after this layer there is another:
white like bones.
Next is red like candy,
then green like plastic trees,
until after ten inches of blue
you reach stone-cold metal, so ancient and unused to the air
that it might crumble if you sneezed too enthusiastically.

Comes to pass my picture of the Middle East
(one minute and twenty one seconds of television news,
          much less than I had thought)
is an inaccurate representation of people
and the individuality of their experience.

How does one measure the merit of
I am offended?

If all I know are snapshots, misdirecting
the issue, changing path to digest murdered cartoonists
killed with Allah in mind
          (another misdirection)
and I am not outraged.

Sadness manifests as thick fog
blocking artificial light, splitting the rays,
opening up and flexing, the truth as is,
the sole truth we must attain;
          we are slow, dying creatures.
Inborn freedoms dissolve.

Did Salman Rushdie beg forgiveness for
images of his head book-ending a spear,
or did he die a little in secret?

Suppose I am a rouser marching the streets of
New York City, a gold pendant of two
          falling towers adorning
my chest-cave, Je Suis etched into my forehead
(black felt-tip).

Do you defend me?
Relish in your torment of words?

Will you bury the fire in your belly
for sake of freedom?