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JR Falk Apr 2016
Your creativity is showing me a spectrum of colors I myself had never seen,
and though overwhelming,
it's mesmerizing all the same.
The shades of your voice are enough to get me lost in the art,
the cool and warm tones of your words leave me wondering just what season it is.
Similar to the Wisconsin weather I endure daily,
so warm and embracing one moment,
nearly as cold as the deadest of winter the next.
You told me your worry about yourself because of how your mind works.
That over the last two years,
it has not mattered who we've seen,
what we've endured,
we always come back to this.
And can I just say that
I never thought I'd be in this kind of relationship.
Late night phone calls and
distanced "I love yous"
followed by confessions I fear I'll never admit once the line goes dead.
We always joked we'd marry when we were younger,
but the reality of it is becoming realer than I'd ever imagined.
Through it all, I just want you to know that
I wouldn't mind getting lost in your voice one day.
The spectrum you show me,
almost as vast as the space between you and I.
And yes, I really have thought about this-
because I consider you my best friend
And that's something no amount of distance will change.
**** this whole love thing it's really **** exhausting y'feel
--
7:12am
04/05/2016
August Mar 2016
A busy city with busy people
With dreams and aspirations crammed into 22 sq. miles
The restless hustle and blaring horns
People looking for a life reborn

Keeping their eyes low and walking fast
Cars that always slam on the gas
Every street has a different story, and every story has a different listener.
A tiny world of its own,
But the city keeps getting bigger.

Returning to my routine
And missing the place I'd rather be,
Day in and day out doing the same thing
After moments have become distant memories.

The place I will one day live, won't sit and wait for me,
But I still dream of New York City as the place I want to be.
These streets
are home to countless
rodents
emerging for a moment
to feed
or breed
or just to breathe the sun

One by one line up
for the chance to
make something
out of nothing

Who are they and
where do they go
while the city refuses to
sleep

Doors to endless lands
line the avenue
each its own portal to the
unimagined

A family of four
with the yapping mutt
or a lonely cat lady
whose entryway wreaks of *****,
a drug dealer
door slamming
every hour on the hour
or an empty snowbird's nest

On the surface
everyone pretends
they don't have a hole to
crawl back to
or walls that know
every night

But below the sewer grate
a world filled with
the stench
of what could have been a
good day

Many a barkeep can
shed some life
on these drunkards'
rat king
or at least a story of those who
made it out

Once or twice it'd be grand
to see the bottom of a martini glass
left with a sip or two
instead of the casually tipped
lipstick-clad cocktail,
drained of doubt and despair
until morning warms the
frozen dreams
of those retired to
a paradise unknown
New York City streets
Venny Mar 2016
Missing the trains, cars, and 3 AM bars. Excitement of the city, and the ache brought a pity. Of wanderlust she had once held in her hands and taken for granted. The adventure she had left there still overflowing in her heart. She had forgotten to appreciate the crowded avenues and beeping buses. The soft, gentle green grass of Central Park. The quiet and timid clink of silver spoons in coffee and tea shops. She missed the old rickety benches full of history and graffiti. The rough paved streets lined up with taxis. The food trucks overflowing with various smells calling your name. Even missing the loud taps of heels as businesswomen rushed passed her, to catch a meeting, a lunch date, a train. She realized what she thought she didn't want, was all she really needed. She thought she needed quiet and she thought she needed serene, but we all begin to realize nothing is what it seems. She knew what she needed to do, and she knew she would do it alone.  She would pack to go far, and get in a car,  going back to New York.... Her real home.
Mary K Mar 2016
tile covers the floor and the wall and the ceiling
it sends my head spinning.
glorious white has faded to decaying yellow
cracks and grime populate this darkness.
a damp chill settles in the air
only broken up by the occasional subway train
out of the vacuum of the tunnels.
fast food wrappers covered in lipstick stains tumble in the wake of passing crowds,
the only testament to the world up above.
it's quite possible to believe that
nothing exists
besides these miles of tunnels
and endless rows of splintered tiles.
from the depths within
demonic sounds terrorize
and with the red lights that draw ever closer
right on schedule,
it's not hard to believe the veil is thinner here
in this never-resting place
and an energy surge
or the blink of an eye
could turn these diluted colors
to black and red and white
with no way back up to the city streets you once thought you knew
...
Àŧùl Feb 2016
Eliot York,
I want you to read this,
Quite stark,
This queer query is.
I wonder oh I wonder,
Just why it is called so,
Why is it so named?
Why is it named Hell O'Poetry,
When the Heaven O'Poetry it is?
Such a paradoxical name it has,
Contrary to its reality the name is,
We enjoy every bit on this Heaven.
Just kidding.

My HP Poem #1033
©Atul Kaushal
Rebecca Gismondi Feb 2016
two MTA

workers play invisible baseball across platforms at Union Square

the runs in my tights mimic the skyscrapers
whose marks I see across the black sky from the rear

window while he ***** me in the backseat of his Audi

an alley in Brooklyn,
the threat of a subway slasher,
the likelihood of getting lost,

but the questioning by tourists for direction

if I say “I am one of you”, it

discredits my memories here:

[pumpkins on 34th in July
kisses in bathtubs in Meatpacking
top of the Whitney]

but I am not (yet) one of you:

impatient drivers,
L train riders,
rainbow bagel obsessers

I still feel a hand grip my throat when walking down 5th
and throw my bones off the Chelsea Pier
before I spend 11 hours wondering why I haven’t yet committed myself to you.
Bowie
left town
blasting off
from a
Lafayette
rooftop
his ***
spewing
a rainbow arc
liberally
sprinkling
Gluten-free  
golden glitter
onto chichi
Houston Street
bistros
liberating a
fawning glitterati
eager to prance
about a
shanghaied
High Line

for a
NY second
the best dressed
homeless dude
in NoHo
spotted a
Pale Duke
apparition
fluttering over
a posse of
faux
figurine
graffiti
splashed across a
Banksyless wall
tagging the
sunny side
of the finest
neighborhood
car wash

a ghostly
Lou Reed
dressed to the nines
in sleek
Transformer drag
watched
chuckling,
scratching his *****
humming
the final bars of
an Eno
inspired
Perfect Day,
marking odds
when a
long overdue
Iggy Pop
will crash the
Pearly Gate
mosh pits

Ubering
through
the choppy seas
of urban sludge,
lightning bolts
streak down
the sullen faces
of cash strapped
honey dippin
lust for life
hipsters,
luxuriating in
a well nursed
millennial
angst
stew

Fun City's
frenzied
bare footin
Little Monster
darlings
imprisoned
in soulless
high-rises,
still a
quarter shy
from annual
bonus time,
pace
white
stained
minimalist
spaces
indulging
notions
driven
by economic
compulsion
to dial up
flush with cash
fund managers
to seek
margin loans
on their
large positions
in alpha rich
distressed
asset funds
while their
diamond collared
Schnauzers
wait outside
the corner
State News
licking the
oozing sores
encrusting
Lazarus's
feet

Ziggy's
lapping tongue
marks time,
waiting for
the stretchy
panted painted
ladies scoring
Iman's
organic rouge
at a corner
bodega

listening to
a sidewalk
trash can
yelp today's
Daily News
headline
"Major Tom
Myna Hero!"
bekighting the next
15 minute legend
a talking
Myna bird
named
Major Tom

the vigilant
Major
alerted occupants
of a Brooklyn
townhouse of
a furnace leaking
carbon monoxide
when he stopped talking
and dropped dead

a veritable canary
in a coal mine story

a special service
marking
Major Tom's
supreme sacrifice
is planned,
in the spirit of
neighborhood
beatification
the family
implores those
wishing to express
condolences
in lieu of flowers
to please occupy
Prospect Park
to drive out
the rapacious
squeegee men
and feed the
hungry pigeons

Bowie's earthly star
may have gone black
but the ashes of his
disembodied voice
will forever
mark the city
like the
ubiquitous
gray splot
ashes of
pigeon
guano

David Robert Jones
1.8.47 - 1.10.16

Well Done Beloved
God Bless and Godspeed


Music Selections:

David Bowie, Dollar Days

David Bowie, I Can't Give Everything Away

David Bowie, Black Star

Jazz Messengers, Wayne Shorter
Lester Left Town

1.17.16
NYC
jbm
Poetic T Jan 2016
I walk the crowded pavements, like a sea
Of people life flowing ebbing upon the
Streets all to reach that destination

A light shining red a hundred feet ready
To walk Idle hello's and lovely weather.
Green and the herd move once again.

Necks stretched upward, gazing as if
Never seeing such beauty up high
Tourists easily spotted.

Locals smile as all are welcome in
The big city. Smells of food venders
Gliding aroma, Mmm hotdogs.
EG Dec 2015
I wish I could go back in time
to simpler times
my Brooklyn times
Where I would just **** on my stoop,
with nothing to do
and think about how one day I make it big,
have my own family, house and kids
but here I am close to 30 still dreaming,
waiting patiently for my life to have some meaning
-E.G
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