Crystal chandeliers
shelter an aviary restaurant
just beyond our patio.

A pair of purple finches,
having heard the place well-chirped,
drop in for a hasty lunch
and flit away full and fortified.

A cardinal taxies in to sample
the black oil sunflower seeds,
then revs his engines for the flight
to a chilled Magnolia branch -
scattering  snow tufts as he lands.

Birds of every kin and feather
spread the word from branch to tree
that you just can't beat the tasty fare
at the little wire and glass café
beneath the crystal chandeliers.

*February, 2011

is it crazy
to be madly in love
with a city you've never been to?
or perhaps it's something
along the lines of fate.
i dream of life
on a grand scale,
wearing heels on cobblestone streets
and hailing taxies
without a care in the world.
i suppose i'll have to
get there first.

My internal clock is set at Manhattan
I face the world with a jaded point of view
Manhattanites are chauvinistic, snobbish, opinionated
And relentlessly focused

Manhattan energy drives our universe
Like the taxies forge the streets
In a frontal assault

Art, history and multiculturalism
Remain the melting *** of stew
Brewed from micro to macro
But always after the brass ring

Always reaching upward
Like the skyscrapers of today and yore
Clamoring to be the tallest in the world
Yet knowing that we already are
Simply because we’re Manhattanites

Faith in our own destiny
We’re Manhattanites after all
And being a Manhattanite
Is all that needs to be said