Another shift, another day, Another buck to spend or save
A million riders, maybe more, delivered to their office door
Or maybe warehouse maybe store.
Or church or shul or city school, right on time as a rule.

Clickety, clackety, clickety, clee,
I am New York, the City’s me
Come let me ride you on my knee
From Coney Isle to Pelham Bay
From Bronx to Queens eight times a day.

Ride my trains, New Yorkers do
And you’ll learn a thing or two
About the City up above, the one some hate, the one some love.
On the street they work like elves
Down below they’re just themselves.

Through summer’s heat they still submerge,
Tempers held (though always on the verge),
They push, they shove – just like above –
The crowds will jostle, then finally merge.

Downtown to work and then back to sleep
They travel just like farm-herded sheep.
In through this gate and out the other,
Give up a seat to a child and mother,
Just don’t sit too close to that unruly creep!

With these crowds huddled near
Just ride my trains with open ear,
There’s lots of tales for you to hear.


Dis stop is 86th Street, change for da numbah 4 and 5 trains.  Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.   77th Street is next.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     I’m Doctor Z, Doctor Z are me
     I’ll fix your face or the visit’s free.
     Plastic surgery, nips and tucks
     You’ll be looking like a million bucks.

     Looka those pitchas, ain’t they hot?
     You’ll look good, too, like as not!
     Just call my numbah, free of toll
     Why should you look like an ugly troll?

     You’ll be lookin good like a rapster
     Folks start stealing your tunes on Napster
     Guys’ll love ya, dig your face
     Why keep lookin like sucha disgrace?

     Call me up, you’re glad you did
     Ugly skin you’ll soon be rid.
     Amex, Visa, Mastercard,
     Payment plans that ain’t so hard.

     So don’t forget, pick up that phone
     Soon’s you get yourself back home.
     I’ll have you looking good, one, two three
     Or else my name ain’t Doctor Z.


Dis stop is 77th Street, 68th Street Huntah College is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     It was a limo, now it’s the train;
     Tomorrow’s sunshine, but now it’s rain.
     The market’s mine, for taking and giving
     It’s the way I earn my living.

     Today’s losses, last week’s gain.
     A day of pleasure, months of pain.
     We sold the puts and bought the calls;
     We loaded up on each and all.

     I’ve seen it all, from Fear to Greed,
     Good motivators, they are, both.
     The fundamentals I try to heed
     Run your gains and avoid big loss.

     Rates are down, I bought the banks
     For easy credit, they should give thanks.
     Goldman, Citi, even Chase
     Why are they still in their malaise?

     “The techs are drek,” I heard him say
     But bought more of them, anyway.
     I rode the bull, I’ll tame the bear
     I’ll scream and curse and pull my hair.

     So why continue though I’m such a ****?
     I’ll cut my loss if I find honest work.



Dis is 68th Street Huntah College, 59th Street is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     He rides the train from near to far,
     In and out of every car.
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”
     Some folks buy them, most do not,
     Are they stolen, are they hot?
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”

     Who would by them, even a buck?
     What’re the odds they’re dead as a duck?
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”
     Why not the Lotto, try your luck,
     Or are you gonna be this guy’s schmuck?
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”


Dis is 59th Street, change for de 4 and 5 Express and for de N and de R, use yer Metrocard at sixty toid street for da F train.  51st Street is next. Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     “Dat guy kips ****** wit me, Wass he
     tink, I got time for dat ****?  Man, I
     got my wuk to do, I ain gona put
     up with him
     no more.”

          “I don’t know what to tell this dude. Like,
          I really dig him but
          ***?  No way.  And
          He’s getting all too smoochie face.”

     “Right on, bro, slap dat fool up
     side his head, he leave you lone.”

          “Whoa, send him my way.  When’s the last
          time I got laid?  I’m way ready.”

          “Oh, Suzie,..”


Dis is fifty foist Street, 42nd Street Grand Central is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin doors.



     Abogados es su amigos, do you believe the sign?
     Are they really a friend of mine?
     Find your lawyer on the train
     He’ll sue if the docs ***** up your brain.

     Pick a lawyer from this ad
     (I’m sure that you’ll be really glad)
     You’ll get a lawyer for your suit,
     Mean and nasty, not so cute.

     Call to live in this great nation
     1-800-IMMIGRATION.
     Or if your bills got you in a rut
     1-800-BANK-RUPT.

     We’re just three guys from Flatbush, Queens
     Who’ll sue that ******* out of his jeans.
     Mama’s proud when she rides this train
     To see my sign making so much rain.

     No SEC no corporations
     We can’t find the United Nations.
     Just give us torts and auto wrecks
     And clients with braces on their necks.

     Hurting when you do your chores?
     There’s money in that back of yours.
     Let us be your friend in courts
     Call 1-800-SUE 4 TORTS.


Dis is 42nd Street, Grand Central, change for the 4, 5 and 7 trains. Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Toity toid is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


They say there’s sev’ral million a day
From out in the ‘burbs, they pass this way.
Most come to work, some for to play
They all want to talk, with little to say.

Bumping and shoving, knocking folks down
A million people running around.
The hustle, the bustle the noise that’s so loud
Get me far from this madding crowd.

“We can be shopping instead of just stopping
And onto the next outbound train we go hopping.
Hey, it’s a feel that that guy’s a-copping!”

They want gourmet food, from steaks down to greens
Or neckties and suits, or casual jeans,
It’s not simply newspapers and magazines
For old people, young people, even for teens.


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is Thoidy toid Street, twenty eight is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     “So what’s the backup plan if
     He doesn’t get into Trevor Day?
     I know your
     heart’s set on it, but we’ve only
     got so many strings we
     can pull, and we can’t donate a
     ******* building.”

           “Hooda believed me if I tolja the Mets
          would sail tru and the Yanks get dere
          by da skinna dere nuts?
          I doan believe it myself.  Allya
          Gotta do is keep O’Neil playin hoit
          And keep Jeter off his game an
          We’ll killum.

               “My sistah tell me she be yo *****.  I tellya I cut you up if you
                ****** wid her, I be yo ***** and donchu fuggedit.”

     “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.
     And we can just **** good and
     Well find some more strings to pull!”

          “Big fuggin chance.  Wadder ya’ smokin?”

               “Yo sitah she ain my *****, you be my *****.  I doan be ******
                wid yo sistah.  You tell her she doan be goin round tellin folks
                dat ****.”


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is Twenty eight Street, twenty toid is next.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     Do you speak Russian, French or Greek,
     We’ll assimilate you in a week.
     If Chinese is your native tongue
     You’ll speak good English from day one.

     Morning, noon, evening classes
     Part or full time, lads and lasses.
     You’ll be sounding like the masses
     With word and phrase that won’t abash us.

     Language is our stock in trade
     For us it’s how our living’s made.
     We’ll put you in a class tonight
     Soon your English’ll be out of sight.

     If you’re from Japan or Spain
     Basque or Polish, even Dane,
     Our courses put you in the main
     Stream without any need for pain.

     We’ll teach you all the latest idioms
     You’ll be speaking with perfidium.
     We’ll give you lots of proper grammar
     Traded for that sickle and hammer.

     Are you Italian, Deutsch or Swiss?
     With our classes you can’t miss
     The homogeneous amalgamation
     Of this sanitized Starbucks nation.


Dis is Twenty toid Street, 14th Street Union Square is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin doors.


     “Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to bother you
     But things are bleak of late.
     I had a job and housing, too
     Before my little quirk of fate.”

     “There came a day, not long ago,
     When to my job I came.
     They handed me a pink slip, though,
     And ev’n misspelled my name.”

     “We’ve got three kids, my wife and me.
     We’re bringing them up right.
     They’re still in school from eight to three
     With homework every night.”

     “I won’t let them see me begging here,
     They think I go to work.
     Still to that job I held so dear
     Until fate’s awful quirk.”

     “So help us now, a little, please
     A quarter, dime (or dollar still better),
     It’ll go so far to help to ease
     The chill of this cold winter weather.”

     “I’ll walk the car now, hat in hand
     I do so hope you understand
     I’m really a proud, hard working man
     Whose life just slipped out of its plan.”

     “I thank you, you’ve all been oh so grand.”


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is 14th Street, Union Square, change for da 4 and 5 Express, the N and the R.   Astor Place is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     The hours are long, the pay’s no good
     I’m far from home and neighborhood.
     All day I work at Astor Place
     With sunshine never on my face.
     Candy bar a dollar, a soda more
     A magazine’s a decent score.
     Selling papers was the game
     But at two bits the Post’s to blame
     For adding hours to my long day.
     All the more work to save
     Tuition for that son of mine: that tall,
     Strong, handsome, American son


Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Yer at Astah Place, Bleekah Street is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     Summer subway’s always hot, AC’s busted, like as not
     Tracks are bumpy, springs are shot ‘tween the cars they’re smoking
     ***.

     To catch the car you gotta run they squeeze you in with everyone
     Just hope no body’s got a gun 'cause getting there is half the fun.

     Packed in this car we’re awful tight seems this way both day and
     night.
     And then some guys will start a fight.  Subway ride’s a real delight.

     Danger! Keep out! Rodenticide! I read while waiting for a ride.
     This is a warning I have to chide:  
     I’m very likely to walk downtown, but I’d never do it Underground.

     Took the Downtown by mistake.  Please, conductor, hit the brake!
     Got an uptown date to make, God only knows how long I’ll take.


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is Bleekah Street, Spring Street is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     The trains come through the station here,
     The racket’s music to my ear.
  &nbs

we did what we could that night
and a supernal being is ashamed.

this is the drift of thought
in the vast ocean of gilded gold
frothing at the edge of rotund:
giving back a silenced enigma,
spewing the answer in an exhaust
of white rancid smoke
dharma burns plastered to cigarette.
burning and burning, afloat are the high-pouncing embers looking for fleeting shades and dagger-ambulations
of a shadow's swagger in tectonic soiree.

we did what we could that night.
like a flash of lightning at the back
of hoarded hills,
or say, something brutal and brash with
modern sensibilities we never jell —
we come not with softness or life
peering out of our eyes like little girls
serenaded by mad men in the eve of
forlorn nights. we did what we could
and some god cringes, winces away
like the erratic dance of candleflame.

the leviathan black spreads its parasol
and we are no strangers.
when our veraciousness starts to pierce
the veil, the populace should start
to worry of their trapped conditions.
we came here for something:
be it flesh, be it wisdom, be it plain inebriations — we will never flinch
at the squalor of tomorrow's sobering.
keep in mind, kaibigan.

    it's all levitation and transcendence.

the darkness wept as the car
groans near the end of its immaterial life.
i flick the last cigarette into the grey-faced pavement.
all oceans drowned,
all shadows burgeoned,
all fires emerged plump,
this silent radio rivers
through the wave of this ephemerality,
the onomatopoeia of strangeness,
the   thud
      of the senseless head of metal
     on the body

the   clackety-clack
       of hours thereafter!

ayeayeaye! the streets sing no mild
  appendage. the solstice is lost
    in the length and precision of all things.
bringing ourselves to the brink of absence,
    our pallid selves set ablaze, emblazoning
the quick life of matchflame or rumble of    
    thunder — the steady phoenix of
       that night! this is learning
  to breathe again, o, what currents purloined in vicious swarth as we keep
     this river flowing into our throats,
  jamming our souls to compelling music.

   remember kaibigan,
it's all levitation and transcendence.

The clickety clackety
of my mother's bureau always
started school mornings.
My rumpled clothes lay in a heap
by my feet.
Sweet lemon-water perfume stings
my nostrils, and piercing sunlight
winks through the shades.
Good morning, morning,
sing me a song
about dew-kissed lilies,
brewing coffee,
a jogger's
labored breathing,
and a sparrow's jittery chirp.

burning pages.
epiphanies procured through the pages of a book.
let's burn the already ones read.
i doubt the meaning of life is within the confines of the downed pink capsules.
the hollow shell of a human form.
i keep validating it. chemical communication has every place here.
the warm. hands clickity clackety against the keys. because they are home.
furiously scribbling is the one organic anecdote.
throwing a verse down is much preferred to THROWING DOWN. which is what human nature gives on the tendency to fantasize about.
let's not quabble over semantics here. (and let's not mention fantasy).
i'll check for justification in the mirror image of my face in the bottom of the carrot-stick bag.
no such luck, the soul ain't there either.
WANT TO VERBALLY SPAR, BABY?
i don't think you, nor i have the ability. (actually i do, it's more your well-being i'm concerned about)
erstwhile you sit and wait for the first attack, you should think into purchasing some pantene.
2.99 at walgreene's.
i've forgotten what i've started for. so let's not quabble over semantics here.
the death of white roses are never wept over. it's expected.
(maybe a vase in the corner is quite befitting of the lovely token of hopelessness)
it's like a catch-22, it's like fighting a losing battle.it's winning something like a full paid scholarship to plumber school, or finding out your best friend is a **** on christmas mourning.
merry christmas.
one should be cautious in stealing public property. the owner hadn't left it out for the recycling. you should have read the label.
and you:

i'm done.

remember when you ****** the marrow out of my bones
                    slurp and down in your belly
and how angry empty it was
and how you tried to fill them back up
                    with words like cottonballs
and how hollow they were and how hollow were my bones
and how our sounds had changed
                    from warm and slick slippery ******* when we parted
                    to dull clackety skeletons
                    accidentally bouncing off each other:
                    dry tock-tock-tocks and echoes
and now my marrow’s all grown back
and rosy is my colour again
and if i jump your bones now
                    maybe it will sound softer and squashier
                    maybe we can be moist again
                    maybe we can be apart but not lacking warmth
and maybe we can be parted but not lacking warmth

rickety rackety hickory sticks 10
bundled for the burning 6
finicky syncope, verse that predicts 10
a pleasure twice returning. 7


clickety clackety silver-wrought tongues 10

kittens and cats in cahoots 7

my grandparents lived on the side of a mountain
to the west a coast and in-between a railroad track
in the mornings, I would lay
stationed in my grandfather war cot
it is soaked the tears and blood he shed for this country
I was too young to understand this
I am only waiting for the train
my dog barks and growls at the rattling picture frames
of the locomotives clackety warble
I crept upstairs to find my grandparents having coffee
my grandmother a white plump cigarette
my grandfather a gentle grey bear
a toy carousel waiting for me
I sat under a dim table lamp
moving the carousel around with my fingers
watching the horses twirl and my dizzy boyish gaze
sparkle at the wonder of my grandparents
who finally want me around
who finally asked me to sit with them
as they have their quiet morning
I was not always so quiet
when my brother was awake we would throw rocks
and sneak into my grandfather shop to peek at his gun collection
he did not like this
my grandmother never had the patients for rambunctious adolescent men
waking the dead with the television
and screeching for us to play outside
I never knew my grandmothers love or never felt it
unwelcome on her stage
always playing the role of nuisance
not until this morning
this significantly raw occasion
just maybe I wasn't such a burden
but after that morning when night swiftly moves in
and tired eyes feel like old college roommates
I still wait for the melody of trains
I still creep upstairs to find my grandparents drinking coffee
and they tell me to go back to sleep

What? Are you HERE?*
She's on her phone, waiting for her suitcase.
Girlfriend, I live twenty minutes away from the

Airport. Now get your luggage and run out
Here before your roses start
Stinking.

She's through the arrival gates in five minutes.
Swapping flowers for bags and a kiss,
I cannot for my own life grasp

Her surprise. Not used to being treated
Like a woman?
She smells her roses, fresh from 7-11,

Click-clackety-clacking down the airport
Tiles with less to carry than
Ever, this day.

She answers, and I
Feel so ****
Giant.

What a drawf
World it has
Become...

(20 minute poetry)

it kills me to hear
when the next one
gets near
think
I fear the train more
than the journey

but it carries me along
to the sound of its song
clackety clack down
a narrow gauge track
and my ticket's a single
do
I not want to come back?

I used to be monarch of all I surveyed,
a hero,

my subjects obeyed me
now
they despise me
conspire to depose me
who knows what the outcome
will be?

the eight forty three
arrives at
platform nine
running six minutes late
due to leaves
on the line.

An opportunity to work
which is more than my worth
and
for more than they pay
I could
do something
different.

The After Effects
After hours of hearing her sweet voice
that drifts me to sleep every night.
Sometimes softly that I shrink in my bed,
occupying a very little space just like
a snail  getting into its shell for sleep.
And sometimes scolding me just like
a mother would do & sends me to sleep
& I would go to sleep like a sincere child
following his mom's command.

After those beautiful hours of my
meditation session,
My favourite soothing music,
My best part of the whole day,
Comes to an end
when the sun rises.
In the morning when I'm already awake.
(I don't wait for this moment to come.)
I now stay awake hoping today.....
today might be the day when she won't leave.

Her first deep breath in the morning,
Followed by an adorable yawn &
stretching of the body just like a cat does.
"Good morning" she whispered.
That's when my day actually starts.
That's when the sun, for me, rises.

I won't say anything(I know that's weird)
But just because I want to stay calm &
listen to those breaths and whispers
one more time which will leave an
everlasting impression on my mind
& I could, somehow, spend the rest of the day,
thinking about her and wait for the night to come.

"Now it's time to go" whispered her voice again.
I feel like a prisoner who was just enjoying
his talk with someone special over phone
but on either side of that glass.
I would give her a sweet kiss & she would
smile(I can see that smile)& say goodbye.
A clickety-clackety sound of her earphones,
Then

Silence!

I could now only hear the noise of my fan.
And
My own heartbeat.

HOW QWERTY CAN ONE GET?

tactactac - tack!
goes one letter after

an other each
tactactac - tack

becoming a clickety
clackety word.

The typewriter
spits out sound

and sometimes sense
each line ending in the clack

of the returning carriage
the ping of its bell

the poem snatched
from the machine's jaws

snatched from the nothing
from whence it came.

The page wearing its new words
like some glorious clothes

that changed
the whole character

of what could be
said.

You must be this tall
To ride this ride
The man clangs you in
And the ride begins

There is a bar holding you back
As clanging gears strange you up
And up and up
Clackety-clack

Apex of apostasy
Seeing clearly
Holding on for dear life
As the real ride begins

Blue wind gathering brown leaves, Spinning them
In angry circles
Under snow clouds with a
Witch wind carrying the sound of freight trains,
Coal and syrup tankers,
Box cars covered with graffiti
Hieroglyphics of the inner city. Dark cars blurring
Brown and black,
In rhythmic clacking order,
One then another, then 126,
Then a caboose, with a conductor you never see anymore. And the gates lift,
And the cold wind rocks
The car as you drive along
Numbly. And you slowly learn the lows and highs
Run on parallels,
Like dark trains along the
Clackety rails of your life,
And the cold front defies
The sun, While I draw
This dark stone,
And the images of winter
Engrave my heart like a stylus, And the mantra
Of dark memories
Become my dark comforter,
And I draw them to me.
And I count the dark horses
Running over darkened hills.
And I picture a barroom,
And I'm lost among the wolves, And I study the **** on my finger,
And my life runs red in my hand, While I wait upon the
Spaces, looking for my pearl,
My red pearl of abandon,
And I draw the wound within me,
I am, I am my Normandy,
As I count my breath between spaces, As I
Gather the darkness around me.
Odessa, Odessa, lying in the sun.
What fable you bring me,
What fate have I wrought?
O tepid sunrise,
I beseech your graven order,
And laugh at your presumption,
And I draw the dark hand,
And the Joker smiles at my
Misfortune, While my millstone draws me to
Deeper water,
As I plummet the square root
Of infinity.
And it's a dark hole,
My dark star,
Pulling my being to abyss,
As I laugh, laugh upon the
Graven ground, And haunt
The dreams that haunt me forever.