"storefronts" poems
maybe the buildings are hollow,
occupied only in facade on the first floor of storefronts
maybe this whole town is a hologram
of neon against puddles
on the pavement.
maybe the citizens are ghosts
floating by
in circles, or squares of city blocks,
around a routine,
or droning through on electric scooters
as if on muted theme park rides
to the next sensory diversion;
to the nearest gastronomical pleasure;
toward the weekend and its next party
celebrating the loss of time,
I see their tired faces
staring out from the glass
of coffeeshop windows
on every block.
I see their piles of beer cans
beside the trash chute.
I hear them singing
on booze-cruises to nowhere
What part of this cycle
that turns days into dust
moves us closer to heaven?
What feast from what new restaurant downtown
will feed our souls?
From which lonely night do we finally emerge
beside the one
whose presence fills
these hollow buildings
to the top-most floors?
Which of the empty lots
between us do we fill
with a conversation
about how this is all a dream,
or how we'll keep each other awake
on a bench
beneath a street lamp before dawn
waiting for the first bus to take us home.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 12:25 AM UTC
I am from New Jersey.
From the paradise of small towns
And the inferno of concrete jungles.
I am from truck tire playgrounds,
Porch Clubs, and the whistle
Of the Riverline.
I am from divorce.
From alcoholism and denial,
From broken doors and hearts.
I am from next to hell.
From pouring out full forties
For one's homies passed away.
From too many candlelight vigils
And sidewalks littered with fourth grade pictures.
I am from the garden state.
From cows, corn, and Clinton,
And tractors in the parking lot.
I am from tradition.
From pasta and seven fishes,
From "Mafiosa!" screamed in the streets
And "No WHOPs" pasted on storefronts.
I am from love.
From three parents and four siblings,
From six dogs and duplicate holidays,
And the smell of tulips and holly.
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 10:09 PM UTC
Vision obscured by soft misty rain dampening harsh city lights
spilling slippery from storefronts and traffic train
shimmering upon pavements
between steps and stains.
soft misty rain
don't I know you?
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 2:57 PM UTC
Howls in the night
cross the threshold of savagery
Coordinated hate
of a hundred jackboots
stomping faces in the streets
Storefronts smashed
Crushed glass crunching
under the feet of unbridled violence
Doors bashed in
Swinging sledges smash
Women and children dragged
kicking and screaming from their homes
Beaten unconscious
then beaten while unconscious
Clothes rended
flesh roughly groped
******* mashed
by laughing barbarians
with teeth made of knives
Innocence of a generation *****
in a single evening
Ransacking hands
strangle the wealth of a culture
One thousand synagogues in flames
light cast magnified in the carpet of crystals
sparkle of hellish brilliance
Ninety one lives snuffed
they were the lucky ones
Avoided the camps
where greater horrors were wrought
in the forges of torment
from the pounding of flesh
beneath hatred like hammers
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 8:27 AM UTC
Caressing my face,
Bubbles rush to greet me
Tickling like a sweet spring sigh.
This is only the first.
I am still half
A visitor. Stuck in suspension
Between this world and mine.
Slowly I pass
Through the threshold.
My air-sick ears adjust
To the sounds of the sea.
I stare down
At the small colony
On the sea floor,
My landing gear is down.
Customs arrives.
A grey, French Angelfish
Of the most industrious kind.
But he isn’t obtrusive.
As he flits in and out
Checking my bubbles
Ensuring I am not bringing
Any more air than I should.
No doubt he will stay near
Most of my stay
I have finally arrived,
The coral city stretches before me.
I catch the current trolley
And it whisks me past
Rocky storefronts and coral motels.
Lobster shopkeeps
Rush out of dark
Stores and stand in the street
Giant claws raised
Toward me in supplication.
Beckoning me to come
And browse his wares
While a fish I don’t know
Is busy cleaning homes and stores.
They must’ve dropped out of the school
Which passes by
The pupils in matching uniforms
Of flashing silver and black.
Clown fish wave
To me from their Lawns
Of sea anemone
Before darting back inside.
Here is the kind of place
Where I could put down roots.
Live out an idyllic life
Living in a coral townhouse.
But for me to stay
Would be severely fatal.
I’m just a visitor
And my visa is about to expire.
I look back one more time
As my head breaks the surface.
The sun stings, I blink.
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
Thanks for the title, Boss.
When I was a kid
my hometown
basked in that
(uncertain) period
of peace and
prosperity between
Korea and Vietnam.
It bustled
with busyness
and it seemed like
everyone knew
everyone and there
was always more.
Even the poor
felt included.
Half a century later,
peace has fled
for good and
prosperity too,
leaving only
vacant storefronts
and neighbors
who do not know
each other.
Perhaps this
was inevitable;
perhaps it is
progress.
But there are
moments when
it feels like
a lifetime is
just too much
to witness,
just too long
to live.
Nobody loves
a corpse.
~mce
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 10:45 AM UTC
last night i almost
gave up thinking of bronzy brazilian girls
perspiring pure coconut oil, eau de margherita ;
supermodelas eating my dreams like concord grapes, lionesses
lounging on new york balconies, lithe, reading céline.
(esti ginzburg, on the phone, considers another pomeranian) .
almost stopped.
almost derailed strange vogue-like fantasme of irina shayk, standing legs planted
left knee out-thrust and foot
in ebony heel, cocked against the earth.
set being imitation of gloomy coal mine, east of prague. thin arms firmly controlling the
arc of her pickaxe, clothed in leather, high heels;
sheen of sweat holding her feline body in sweet embrace.
imagining that when shift's end buzzer echoes thru the tunnels she smokes a cigarette
on a bench in the women's locker, apple planted on old planking, elbows on her knees.
cover-alls peeled
down to her waist and her hair,
free at last.
(click)
on the tram back into the city all the smoked glass
cartier storefronts pass by like polaroids held in the hand. the same speed.
giggling, 'rina thinks of the six she could place
along her arm; gilt gold, brushed silver, diamant...
there are 11 smoked belmonts by the back steps; i did
little with the night. (tall shadow of a woman in a black dress and my mouth
a cotton ball)
that is to say:
i did almost give up thinking about bronzy braz ilia g rls ,
-
but i didn't/and so there's nothing else.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 7:14 PM UTC
Fall to me, all you streets of Rome,
With your embrowned oils from torched walls and breccia of shadows,
The pizzicato of stairways and afternoon slowly closed
Like the thick, leathery-echo from this book of all roads.
Fallen, smoldering empire of storefronts and back-shop heirlooms,
Your lupine hills unbound with milk of cur in the wind and woods,
To your fallow fields rowed deep by a conquest of oars,
To the deepest silence and soot-muted oneness of Pompeii,
And a sky that is an ancient coin, without worth,
But still rubbed smooth at the edges by overfond lovers.
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 4:16 PM UTC
Remember those city nights we spent
inhaling the marijuana and halal truck tinted air that fills the space
between the skyscrapers?
Glowing storefronts illuminated
both the skies with their stars glistening quietly under coats of dust
and the streets, dense under ***** and ***** spilled by boys
who yell obscenities to girls
who hang their heads low,
ashamed to be happy to have their push up bras appreciated.
It was the summer we read Catcher in the Rye religiously.
We were overflowing with privilege and hating privilege.
Oh god, how we thought we hated privilege back then.
In June we graduated from middle school,
and you found out your father was cheating on the woman
he cheated on your mother with.
In July you kissed a boy for the first time,
even let him feel you up a little.
I couldn't help getting uneasy,
even though you said it was nothing.
Most nights we couldn’t contain ourselves, shouting ideas
fast as the taxi cabs who'd nearly run our still-growing bodies to the ground,
always in a hurry to get home to their own sleeping children.
We raged rebellion against the red lights.
There was no time to wait around for things as unimportant
as people who weren't us.
In August, I took a klonopin pill from my mom’s drawer
because I couldn’t stop the dread beneath my skull.
It made me sleepy.
We were so filled with poems and wine copped at art galleries
where we’d feigned intellectuality,
that we'd see a *** on a subway train
and call him a vagabond.
Back then we thought we knew how life worked
like the palms of each others hands.
By September, albeit, our fingers were calloused
from the time we climbed a playground's wire fence,
twisted the caps off beer bottles,
and swung from the Monkey Bars.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
In this life, I have seen the valley of broken dreams filled with the souls of taqueria entrepreneurs. I have seen gleaming grills, Hispanic frills, greasy thrills. I have seen spirit thrive in the eyes of men armed with bank loans and family recipes. I have eaten their food, delicious beyond necessity. I have experienced the magic of taquerias and restaurants.
And I have seen that magic die.
I've observed the life unfold, unfurl with a magic to behold. I have seen that magic served in a half-empty restaurant that Frontera has outsold. I have had the magic gone, replaced by payday lenders and takeout from Taiwan. I have seen empty storefronts and the straggling last days of taqueria entrepreneurs. And I grieve every time at the lost loans and lost hopes left behind. But tonight, there will be no grieving. Instead,
Let us eat magic in their memory, enjoy the grease that will surely send us to infirmaries. Let us celebrate the time they had, the tortas, tamales, and leftovers taken home in a bag. Let us celebrate the doomed Mexican restaurants.
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 11:20 PM UTC
Our men are heroes, of course.
They protect us, gun in hand,
against enemies plastered on posters
vandalizing once-beautiful stone storefronts.
More every day.
Stapled on top of one another
until words blend.
"But now,"
the overly made-up woman at the podium says,
"women can do our part."
They’ve gathered other pretty blondes
with symmetrical features measured
by a myriad of devices.
Beautiful,
demure
women
with
beautiful,
Aryan
genes
to breed with our handsome heroes.
Because women,
and the children we bear,
are the key to Germany’s future.
I glance at the woman to my right,
eyes skiing down the slope of her nose
to rest on smiling lips.
Is the blush on her cheeks genuine,
or set by rouge?
It suits her.
She catches me staring.
My breath hitches in my throat.
I throw my attention back to the woman
glorifying human broodmares.
Heat assaults my cheeks.
“Your rouge is lovely.”
Her whisper warms me.
“Can you believe this?
Us, with war heroes?”
She sighs.
I can practically see the dream
play through the air.
A husband coming home in uniform,
splaying a hand on her swollen belly
and kissing her forehead.
A fantasy.
These men…
they’ll come,
take what they want from us for granted
and claim they did us a favor
when they leave us alone
with child.
But my fingers would dance
never-ending pirouettes
across that porcelain skin.
Swirl intricate patterns
through golden hair,
all for that sigh
to carry a dream with me in it.
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 2:28 PM UTC
I encountered him last night
I think I handled it well.
I was with a group of friends
in search of the gallery my friend
was showing in.
I'm staring at storefronts,
and suddenly aware that
I am facing someone familiar
12 feet away. He was in a restaurant
with a girl, facing the window.
He came into focus and I
realized who I was looking at.
As awareness crept into my face
he nodded at me. I smiled,
Raised my hand in a wave,
Turned
and walked away.
I think I handled it well.
Mar 30, 2012
Mar 30, 2012 at 11:36 AM UTC
These streets knew feet in days gone by,
bustling sidewalks, crowded storefronts,
laughter, light and dancers leaking
out of smoke-filled bars.
Cars would wind through intersections,
blood cells between neighborhoods.
From The Corner came The Roar.
He remembers how the Autumn sounded
back in '84
when Alan Trammell brought The Series home,
the arcing shot off Gibson's bat,
the rolling wave of soaring voices.
Old English
"D"
tattooed on the hearts
of a city
who's been hurting since the 50's.
Bless You Boys.
Ya did it--
went and Sparked up Michigan
and lit a dimming town again
in Corktown's widening eyes.
In 20 years, though, losses pile up.
55 and starved for signs
of trends reversing, luck upending,
impending relief or just some kind of
something.
Sickening, cloying rapid decay
as neighborhoods die.
These streets know crumbling cinderblock
walls and blistered paint coats don't
cover ribcages starting to show--
steel girder bones--and windows blown
out, like teeth lost from a well-spoken mouth,
allow the Lake Michigan wind to howl
out the tale--
through oxidized bones--
of just what it looks like
when economic war hits home.
Heartbeats still find footing
in Motor City streets, beneath
the Old English "D,"
but mind the scoreboard smart;
the Tigers lost a hundred games
in 2003.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 6:58 PM UTC
There is only this marina and then there is the sea.
Nothing else is.
An apt enough analogy
for a myth dissolving town.
Shaded by storefronts half-expecting someone to arrive,
The hood- stripped wind
Gusts up solitary, empty alleyways
With only stroppy clatter boards to continue the conversation.
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 5:06 AM UTC
I’ve been questioned on
my late night walks,
why do I do it?
the repetitive cracks
sing hedonist soliloquies
at every avoidance,
the streetlights eat away
at forfeiting darkness,
vomiting garbage cans
spew synthetic carrion
and winking storefronts
****** nightfallers,
trash kissing curbs
pushing away affection
cry out for help,
cigarette butts cloud
sandy sidewalks
and hug dragging soles,
passing cars and
mindless youth
spewing timeless
nothings out car windows,
cop cars and crisis topped
middle-agers stumbling their way
to fast food and
regretful forenoons,
I’ve been questioned
on where I’m walking to,
but never what I’m walking from,
no matter where I go,
I find myself
burning my throat
with coffee at 2am
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 1:36 AM UTC
this love is now & new & once again
stabbing @ me like durga-like diety
with sweet golden daggers
an essential togetherness
teasing out of these odd surroundings
I was listening to Jack Kerouac on the way
home in his mad
bop rhapsody apocalypse
streaming out my speakers
while familiar streets crawl past
once again
I'm thinking
as the day old glum spread over me
& out to envelop all I see
how little different to be watching
seeing street signs all opening
into cul-de-sacs and open storefronts
paraded in the endless traffic flow
now bent slow over
feeding my cat crab cakes
that my mother made
myow myow, he goes
& I acknowledge
myow myow, he goes
& I answer
what?
what in god's name is
the matter with you?
myow myow
his solemn reply
licking @ a piece of
exposed claw meat
nestled among old bits
of dry brown kibble
how about this soul?
how about this life?
this sickness?
how about this always seeking I?
how about he music of my mind
in untraceable car rides alone?
wherefore to I wander
ceaselessly in search of what
wonders where I might be
born on the road of least descent
cat paws, grabs @ bottle caps on
grained wood table
my media
fizzles & searchlights
in my window
there is something I'm not facing
something inescapable, my love
like you
born of locusts in the dust, my love
like you
my weary dune-mother
how solemn are the tunes that run
thy face, o' mother and thy will
how broken are the lines upon thine
shining brow in bedroom windows
open to the world like peace
stolen in the sad glance I gaze @ everything
stolen is the cup I fill @ leaking kitchen
sink pipe strands of scent or bark
of neighbor dogs amusing grass flow
weather flowers under well I'm never
knowing what--I never will
no matter, all is well
another's all is nothing now
where knock goes streaming
crashing loud
like anvils in the rain
it's only me
how now, my dear contender?
like a shadow fallen into sound
how now the planets unwatered?
how now the roots are killed?
we all inhabit the same fears
how rabbit hides his smear
to give me a surprise
for me, none so dear
than the mystery
& April dies today
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 1:54 AM UTC
Lots of people come and go.
Lives cross each other, yet o one knows.
The corners are always lively.
The vendor makes another sale, and
the customer leaves satisfied.
Someone waits across the street, for
someone else to meet them.
They connect to each other with a smile.
Hands held and stride as one.
The storefronts shine brightly
hoping to make a sell.
The beauty of the city
is made by you and me.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 9:59 PM UTC
sitting in my seat
all I do is think
saving every breath
counting every blink
thinking fashionably about death
I watch their eyes begin to wander
up and down each others’ bodies
I close
stick a hand into my thoracic cavity
and pretend it’s a clock to wind
backward through time
like they do in magazines
and in front of well lighted storefronts
and downtown mini malls across America.
any beauty column will tell you the tricks
and what you have to trade,
every weight has a balance
and every product has a price.
hands in your pockets
chin in the air
eyes on the pavement—
almost there,
almost there
button your buttons
string your shoes
"I think I can,
I think I can”
you can’t, of course,
but the emptiness of cleared out commercial blocks
and brown brick buildings
and wide streets that are empty in the night
they all call out
antagonizing you with imposing angles
narrowing density
constricting construction
walk away from it all
hide your naked figure alone and cold in the crippling dark
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 3:48 PM UTC
Echoing inside
empty buildings bolted with
fall-ed trees, hollowed stones, were reverberating
hand pats. Clapping will go
on.
Mourning cries,
tears won’t echo as well; rather, staring
hand, clasping
shriveled hand
shaking and bouncing
off wooden panels,
fake storefronts.
Acts
incited
feigned appreciation;
palms crashing, esophagi grumbling,
bodies jostling
for view.
As a species, we watched our own performance.
There, bursts from imagined forces
generated sounds, echoing
an otherwise empty darkness--
a yet empty darkness--
through purview.
Voices and people:
gone.
Objects, unacknowledged.
Thoughts, acted on.
Contained by walls
illuminating anything there was
with echoes from voices
and fingers, flapping on impact,
hitting corridor materials.
Below trap doors, no surprises are
waiting.
Everything that could have been said
is permeating,
blissful
nothingness.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 12:32 AM UTC
Remembering My first taste of coffee--
just another commodity
standing outside Lowell Tech, a local factory,
a city corner in Haverhill snows— a worker's town
Passing out leaflets for a vapid Revolution
Another action/demonstration
to “Seize the Day!”
No computers; no social media
to fill the ranks of rallies at that time
So we froze our ***** off
trying to explain with sound bites, frosted breath
and fogs of rhetoric
A truth-- so tyranic, remote, arcane
too preposterous to even process
let alone explain
Standing there behind
its barbed wire reality
smoking from its stacks
the poisons of its process
Standing there
Stamping blood into my feet
Trying to convince my freezing self
my breaking heart
that all this truth?
was truly worth it!?
as I threw my education and my life away--
Trying to convince
...that inside that building
IT-- was being made
****** and
that Agent of Death and Defoliation
of an orange persuasion
so our war could have its way
with rice paddies and jungles
and people of a browner, poorer smaller bent
While on the home-front
we filled the mill with unwilling bodies
that died somewhere else
off site...
“Outta sight”
...or maybe some years later
from toxins dumped in river
left to leach to cancers somewhere else
into the ground they sink
Through tentacled subsidiaries
restructured divestments
Legal dismissals
of responsibility
the players run like roaches
for the exits
One fast move after another
they dissolve disperse
morph into
renamed ****** entities
Clean up their storefronts
clean out our pockets
while “providing jobs”
“investing in community”
along the way
Putting on a Goodwill Tour
Then
taking it away
“What? We never said....”
We'll take you down
leaving only the stench behind
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 3:01 PM UTC
Keep us out of the ballpark.
Keep fans out so no crowd.
Instead Steal Doritos and grab free beers
There's no stretch in the seventh
cause nobody's here!
Oh it's loot, loot, loot from the storefronts
If we get caught its a shame!
and its one, two, three cops knocked out
at the old brawl game.
Keep us out of the ballpark
ban the fans from the stands
The vendors laid off cause there's nobody here
he's out of a job cause no one's buying beer
Oh its loot, loot, loot from the storefronts-
that Freddie Grey's dead -it's a shame
and it's one, two, three cops knocked out
at the old brawl game
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 10:56 PM UTC
An artist sketches people passing by,
stopping now and then to take in the scene
of a crowded urban market, the carts and shops
full of trinkets, souvenirs, useless items.
The buildings are ***** years of pollution
painted over storefronts. A cable runs
along the street, weaving in and out
of the tops of the pollution-painted buildings.
A woman puts her cigarette out on the litter-strewn
sidewalk, already plastered with scraps of paper,
bits of garbage. The sun creeps slowly behind
the clouds, shining dully over the street market.
The artist takes this in, captures the dirt,
the decay, and the beauty on paper.
She listens, the sound of sellers
and shoppers fading into a steady hum.
A college student on a bike weaves
in, around, and through the crowd,
braking when he reaches the intersection,
then continuing down the avenue.
The artist flips to a new page,
trying to perfect the emotions of
tourists passing through shops, nervously
buying souvenirs from a foreign vendor.
When she’s finished with this sketch,
she packs up carefully, folding
her notepad shot and then into a bag,
and blends into the street scene.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 8:48 PM UTC
Stitch by stitch,
fingers move like ghosts in dim-lit rooms,
eyes strained, backs bent,
breath laced with dust and silence.
A label whispers luxury,
a name stitched in gold,
but behind the seams,
a child traces hunger with trembling hands.
The clock does not sleep,
nor do the hands that sew,
woven into fabric priced in dollars,
while wages shrink to cents.
Promises drape the storefronts,
Ethical. Sustainable. Fair.
But behind factory doors,
needles pierce more than cloth.
Somewhere, a thread unravels,
and a name is lost in the weave,
a worker, a mother, a child.
Their voices fade,
but the machines never stop.
Feb 25, 2025
Feb 25, 2025 at 1:10 AM UTC
I find my finger tracing silhouettes of strangers
As I tap my foot and stare outside the glass pane in front of me
Onto the street where passersby greet the crisp morning air
With knit scarves and hats and boisterous jackets and saddlebags at the hip,
Ready to ride into town and run out the sheriffs in charge of the show
On West End and Broadway.
|
|
Flurries of snow greet the ground with thunderous applause
As I sip my brew, intertwining fingers with my mug like lovers
And tracing silhouettes of strangers standing at the corner
With my free hand.
|
|
The silent footsteps remind me of the cars at Piccadilly Circus on the first snow of the season,
And how all rhyme and reason belong to silhouettes of strangers that walk past the storefronts and stoplights and billboards and Barclay's
Instead of the steady sound of tires screeching and stopping traffic
In this picturesque place.
|
|
A winter's day in New York is a lot like a winter's day in London;
Silhouettes of strangers are outlined by the fingers of fresh-faced people sipping coffee in a corner café.
They tap their feet and wait for a silhouette to escape the bellowing silence of the snow and the roar of the barren roads.
All they want is to intertwine their fingers with another,
Instead of a lukewarm mug.
Aug 24, 2017
Aug 24, 2017 at 10:03 PM UTC
(I had this dream years ago. I was reminded of it today)
I dreamt that it rained.
Down the city street past Kathy's door,
Along the illuminated storefronts.
There was a hum in the chilly air,
in the California Dew, I stopped.
To stand under a lamp post.
'I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling...'
Gene Kelly, full of life and melody,
spun around the lamp post,
and kissed my cheek.
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 12:02 PM UTC