"rockaway" poems
WHAT can we say of the night?
The fog night, the moon night, the fog moon night last night?
There swept out of the sea a song.
There swept out of the sea-torn white plungers.
There came on the coast wind drive
In the spit of a driven spray,
On the boom of foam and rollers,
The cry of midnight to morning:
Hoi-a-loa.
Hoi-a-loa.
Hoi-a-loa.
Who has loved the night more than I have?
Who has loved the fog moon night last night more than I have?
Out of the sea that song
-can I ever forget it?
Out of the sea those plungers
-can I remember anything else?
Out of the midnight morning cry: Hoi-a-loa:
-how can I hunt any other songs now?
2k
Come down,
come down,
come down from your rain cloud.
You're always rainin' on me
babe.
It isn't practical
up there,
what's the use?
And if you're in the sky
where am I,
save, you gotta save it for me now.
Rock me rock me rock me rock me
Rockaway, rock me to Brighton!,
Coney Island dead give away, hey!
I feel like there is more-
there is more and, and I'm not
fully sure,
not from New York.
everybody moves their body fast
they wanna do this city fast,
rock me rock me rock me,
rock me, you know I'm slow.
Get wise, get wise
rest sore eyes
on petals blue.
The waves
and the flat lands are too high now.
Dec 27, 2012
Dec 27, 2012 at 7:06 PM UTC
Around this particular time i can recall bonfires on a Far Rockaway beach
in between two and three AM
The fire; a heap of AM newyork papers burning in a rusted trash can stolen from the boardwalk.
Kiah was beautiful
her hair, coarse honey ringlets framed
a narrow face. I watched her eat grapes
and pull her hair away from her eyes a couple
of times. She ate the grapes and their juice made her lips glossy she did this and sipped on a Corona
her boyfriend sat behind her playing the guitar
and no attention to anyone. I wanted him.
A few days before that I was in his room
He asked if I ever heard Shaggy's "Mr. Bombastic"
that's what was playing when she walked into the room
she stared at me like a cat plotting an attack
walked past me like one too
the night before that I lay on the floor
of his room. There was no furniture
a motor bike in the corner. Some drums,
and various painted wood boards hung up, some laying
on the floor. Oil pastels scattered along with
screws, and bolts. while he played
maxwell on his guitar, acrylic paint under his finger nails.
I woke on the floor with a fuzzy purple throw blanket over me he was still in the same spot strumming and,
smoking a beedie when the sun came up
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 11:21 PM UTC
a tree did grow
in Brooklyn. it was June--
our third-- and the summer weather
hadn't turned yet:
school was just out, Prospect Park was never full, and the nights
were still cool.
it was summer in the city before it comes unglued.
i had yet to resent the F train terminal
or its crowds
or its sweat. i hadn't grown bored
of 23rd St. on one end of the day
and Church Avenue on another,
or of the cost of cigarettes
or coffee or of the FOODTOWN sign
at the top of the subway steps.
it was a beautiful month
because it was doomed barely to last
its 30 days.
and there were too so many long hours,
sitting barely shaded
on your stoop,
fending off the landlord's sister and the bugs and waiting
for the fall.
each time i've gone back
since then i've sat
on those slow steps;
that summer it was no different: three months to crown three
years,
moving so timelessly
by
that next month the heat bore down,
not the heat only of the sun and the air but the wet,
***** heat of the city,
steam forever rising from underground, the oil spills
in the gutters beginning to boil.
but still it was New York
and summer. the roaches and rats hadn't yet
eaten all the fireflies.
i grew to love routine
disquiet: the long car rides to Queens,
the Mets games and their pretzel smell and riding back,
inevitably discouraged,
my homemade tank top leaking Magic marker onto my chest;
the trips to the beach at Rockaway, sullen and determined, and their return
to Manhattan, tasting like salt (and you, once,
like blood) and my hair stiff
with brine and feeling the sand in our shoes grit
against the ***** sidewalks;
those quick walks
from Smith&9th Streets,
sipping Mexican Cokes and rationing our time
by cigarettes:
all of July was exhausting,
but familiar by then.
in August the tornado came,
first Brooklyn'd seen in 30 years. we two
slept blissfully through it, woke only
for the aftermath.
we went outside almost giddy, certainly
unbelieving,
holding hands.
and the tree
which had stood outside so
serenly
was uprooted,
having missed the bedroom window
by only a few feet.
[it was June--
cool.
barely shaded
so timelessly
beginning to boil
all the fireflies.]
Nov 19, 2010
Nov 19, 2010 at 11:18 AM UTC
one more for five year old Ian
he is the little boy, on an
I-don't-want-to-go road trip,
yet inside happily,
pretense outward poutingly,
yet he is nosed pressed straining onto window,
so hard, it's window marked, stain leaving,
absorbing, being absorbed by the fresh
flowing of air currents of new scenery
little boys of beauty,
of beauty,
what do they know?
life is action figures,
videos and toons,
colors vivid but manufactured,
daddy hanging them upside down,
coloring books less than quaint,
few museums bid then enter...
how do they learn what needs
remembering, celebrating...
differentiating tween mundane profane and profound...
some say there are pleasure chems,
the brain releases when the
San Fran sun contacts all flesh,
when California coast surf
beckons claiming splashing
and attention demanding,
when nature offers up
mountain trails that insist
one of any age climb her offerings,
to make them "ours,"
if ever so briefly,.
to be map marked upon
cerebral tissues and
leave the boy and the vistas
neurally connected perpetually
of these matters, I,
no certainty possess,
though I well recall
my nose in that windowed position,
the clarity of Atlantic Rockaway
fresh salt breezes
entering, being stored inside
my five year old brain cloud,
so it could be true
what all the grandmothers
claim!
but this know with soul surety,
there are few things
more beautiful
than a five year old boy,
inhaling the passing scenery,
redding his cheeks even more rosy...
he, a painting, forever stored,
summonable with a single blink
of my mind's eye,
perhaps this is how
he will indeed learn too...
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 10:36 AM UTC
I went for a walk on a clammy november day yet hellishly warm for november
The sky was a mystery off Rockaway
The fish had all been dead all down the
tracks in the sand leading to the drunk fishermen less drunk than the sky
Jul 12, 2016
Jul 12, 2016 at 2:09 PM UTC
The United States
we
stand tall_____*
The ring-size
The shebang seat
Hasn't been anything
but a ball just stand
Or sit in my heat
To the Senate
falling for the
Testimonies
The culture of
colliding ceremonies
coming to America*
Above the
surface
Delicious
Atmosphere blue
Nitrogenous*
The new
Bicentennial
He cannot take
his falling star eyes
off of you his love
((Like Pluto))
dimensional
Starbucks stir-spell
stars
She loves to
sit casually
Your feeling wiped out
Being flagged down_____
All stripes the
American way
Bank of America
Let's travel to
((Bombay))
No time to do
your essays
Be more sacred it pays
Super America
Stop eating the
whole cow
(U) night Ed) United
We feel entangled
What we believe
in is lost
Amazing in all sizes
From head to toe
from birth
Trembling hands
of fate
We all fall down huh?
Niagara Falls her-Ray
Tall riveting sunshine
King Charles charming
French Cafe ring
Henry the 8th carats
Striking
The finest
grains
in her
cup to his
Viking
Artsy gals of the
archway falling for your liking
Milky Way
We must not battle
Broadway
Falling out of love
But they say its
((Your Birthday))
Have a good time
On Flag day
And star bright
American to the
Mediterranean
Buffets for the Pig
and whistle beauty
met her eating beast
Pirates of the Carribean
American side dish
Bacon bits with
String beans
Clerical positions
((Compromising Liaisons))
Fort Myers Pelicans
Brooklyn Belt Parkway
My exit was
Rockaway Parkway
Take me back
Now this world
Full of chemicals
No time for even
The Protocol
Bewildered minds
bifocals to vanish
No food to love
garnish
We need to exhale
American big day
Male sale----I got my ring size seat*
May 30, 2018
May 30, 2018 at 8:24 AM UTC