Ken Siegelman - Urbania [Complete]

[spelling mistakes are his]

Discovering Urbania

Urbania is pregnant in photographs
Of higher buildings
Wedging smaller buildings
Out of sight -
Well defined shade off light
Umbraged by the imagination
Into something purely geometric
Like a sun dial without an arc.
Morning glares off windows
Looking broken,
And compels the eye
To look for something more -
Sometimes teasing with metaphor
Of emptiness in great achievements...
At ground view the narrow alleys
Cobble in the stitchwork
Of a distant century.
Lanes conjure up
A tiny horse down cart
With a wagoner greeting
A waving housewife
Turning to her kitchen window.
Now, the vague outlines
Of slightly newer bricks off the old
Only hint at a window
Ever being there;
The woman is just a photograph
Of my great grandmother
Because she belongs in no other place I
know.
Restrained by Victorian discomforts,
Her face and most of all her eyes
Compel us to imagine
Where her spirit really lives...
Some have taken to photographing
The gears and movements of a watch
To capture the sense of Urbania;
Or concrete piles and smoke stacks
And even traffic jams -
All of which both lose and gain
The sense of being there
For more than just a moment -
Telling us about the place
While we're searching for its faces.
_______________________________________

City Souls

Shaman in Korea
Marry the souls
Of single men
To single women
Who die only days apart
Of one another.
Everyone understands
Because loneliness
At any level
Is the greatest cruelty of all...
We brush against
Eachother
At the theater,
And in trains and buses;
Scurrying to our apartment floors
With city poker faces
We hope will hide
The fear and disappointment.
Sometimes we remember faces
Fashion statements
And even idiosyncrasies
As the minutia of the moment;
The fleeting, futile photographer
We cast out
Like the morning fisherman's
First few throws
To wake the sea into familiarity...
She lived here
For as long as we remember.
She always got the Sunday paper
early.
She wore long beige gloves.
We thought we heard some
screams,
But who could tell for sure
Right off the avenue.
No one claimed her remains
And no one was arrested
For the murder
She went off to Potter's Field
As if she hadn't lived at all,
And we have no shaman here
To wed her soul
In the company of another -
No way to make her
More in death
Than when she was alive.
_______________________________________

Peace Talks

At the wire gate
Between our backyard gardens,
My neighbor
Hones his sickle.
Squinting mesmerized
A deadeye
Frozen glinting
Off a single sitar note
Like a skipping record.
Interrupted, he said:
If all men were big,
There would be no small men
To fire
The first shot
Of a war.
He sounded full
of wisdom.
But I stood silently -
Edgy thoughts
Sprouting bayonets
Above trenches.
_______________________________________

Before The 60's

In an effort more to heal the wounds
Between the North and South
Than to tell it like it was,
Real life Blacks were overlooked -
And what sly rebellious minds
Might have schemed to free themselves
Were hushed inside the silence
Of historians who thought it fruitful
To imagine docile older men with banjoes;
Children dancing in fine clothes
'round fat women who never frowned
As their fantasy of Slavery.
_______________________________________

Flashing By A Newstand

The man who hawks newspapers
looks just like a bull
tied inside a wooden stall.
I pinch my change
inside his calloused palm,
and catch his eye
drifting on me
as I turn away...
I sometimes think
I'd have known him
before he was fenced in;
when we didn't read
or think or getting old.
_______________________________________

Hotel California

Their put-bulls
Off the-leash
Street along-side muscle-tattooed
Topless males
On the fringes of the Cyclone
In the shadowed clock of the moving
ferris wheel
Hypnotizing seagulls looking down.
Like the bride and groom
At a biker wedding
They draw their aura
From the fury and the dust kicked up
And at the swallowed fears
Of tourists just trying to survive
One day at Coney Island...
In a nearby Russian dance hall
The floor is jammed when the band plays
"Hotel California"...
Suddenly they look so American
Because they look so lost.
They embrace a fragile communion
In eachother's arms
And short skirt girls shoot their pictures
From 20 year old cameras
While others hawk a blinking electric
rose
Shrouded like see-through plastic...
Leaving late into the empty streets
The boardwalk masters my just caress
Their dogs
When no one else is looking,
While Russian women holding
blinking roses
Pile into the back seats of their
husband's cars
With grim determination to pull the
covers up
In a war against the dawn.
_______________________________________

East Coast

First impressions
Last
In subtle ways...
Bending on the coast
Road
From Georgia
Straight to Maine
We sense the aura
Of the alcoves and the bays
harboring in the niches
Of their early thoughts to stay:
To shoulder inland
Only cautiously
Through the vast expanse
of trees -
Gianting uncertainty
In every breezing shadow
Snapping twigs
Jittering their triggers
While reaching deep inside
For so much more than guns...
Their first identity
0ceaned out of the notion
Of building European castles
In ways they first imagined.
Irregularities in the coastline
Etched their thinking
With other possibilities -
The differences they found
Around secluded bends
When finally reached
Were already set
Upon their table -
Tasted in the dinner conversations
Chewing the unknown
With the familiarity
Of family and friends
Whose love affair
With surprises
Stamped them as Americans.
_______________________________________

Shades Of Gray

Compelling powers
Help us to deny
The shades of gray
We see
In all the personalities
Moving through our neighborhoods
And families;
Failing in our schools...
Even sitcoms
Rearranged with some complexity
Cannonball the simple message:
"Just say no..."
The aura of the darkened room
And snacks
Refilled through each commercial,
Implant
Black and white
Illusions
Of what we hope
Society can become,
In living color.
Distress
Short circuits us,
Eroding every patience
With those who fail
To search more deeply
For solutions
In themselves -
If only they might
Really watch TV
And patch the broken family
Or stay away from drugs
By simple choices
They have failed to make
All along the way -
Why nothing is impossible
When Fast Food chains
Deliver every comfort
In a twenty minute lunch...
We may
Only come to see
The shades of GRAY
Reality
When someone we revere
And love
Falls before us
With no place
Left to go -
Praying silently
For us to listen;
Touching base
With all the emptiness
We keep locked
Inside ourselves.
_______________________________________

A Grandma Tale

sometime back,
she gotten used to us racing by;
speaking about her in the third person
as if she weren't sitting there -
always there, in-between the hutch and plants,
a greying blur catty-corned by the front room
window.

Catching for a breath,
shoveling out a path from the blizzard -
in a corner's wink
she peels the frosted glass
with a mouth of smiling snow
and long fingers offering a peppery soup spoon
high above our heads.
As if she were determined again
to feed us tales of Peter and the Wolf
before we fell inside the quilt
listening to the wind batter through the alleyway;
dreaming of a howling Russian landscape
where a stranger hunches from the woods
at twilight.
_______________________________________

Statures

In this place,
fat small dogs
Scissor jaw
old vegetables,
leafing off
the garbage bins.
Most have collars
but no tags
and never
look up at people;
Busily passing
one another
as they side-step
to the cadence of jackhammers
up-rooting concrete driveways
for new concrete.
Squat men
with grey moustaches
make their faces look
like every other.
Most pilot battleships;
they scour down the lanes
for the parking space
in full view of their front room -
reserving their driveways
for company.
Women still pick out
the colors of the cars, and
Dreams are shared
as numbers in the lottery.
_______________________________________

Constants

Tasteless liver
Flattens out the sleepless hours
Swallowing an old gray rubber
band...
Edgy thoughts drive me from my
bed,
And reassure I'll be snapping late
As age has come to make regularity
More than just a dull chrome
lighter,
I'm using more and losing more
Than I care to admit.

Toby was an angel with every hair
in place
Except the one strand like a
scimitar
That curved atop, behind her
marble ear,
Around her long thin neck, and
fell about her nightgowned
shoulders
Always held erect...
I learned to leer between the
smallest
crack,
Behind the half-closed door;
Waiting as she turned into another
room,
When she blew a futile puff, and
rolled a wink
And then a shrug,
At that slice of gypsy hair.
Gliding like an angelic imp
I would only see
If I were careful not to sleep
Or think too much of being sixteen
When she was only twelve.

I left early with her brother.
The dark breakfast hour was spent
with
him...
And we'd pass
The dishes I could never taste but
ate
like sleep
for others...
I came to understand that Toby
slept
through
earthquakes...
And with time,
It didn't matter if I saw her in the
morning.
_______________________________________

The Regency Hotel

Watching eachother's swig from
the bottle
With the suspicion of winos
everywhere,
They sat astride the two stone lions
At either side of its once
Grand entrance.
In some strange way
The fearsome beasts
Didn't seem to mind,
As if the demolition
Froze them in a different time -
Chiseling smooth their roaring
gape
Into a yawn of domesticity,
Or perhaps even a smile.
Once European royalty
Entered here
With the affected gaze of stone
disinterest
To the bellhops and manager
Who treated them like g-ds.
Balls as large as all Vienna
Around prism
colors
from
The mighty chandeliers
Jeweling the night concrete
And asphalt outside
Where the horse drawn cabs
Waited patiently like soldiers
standing guard.
No one saw the horses
Shiver in the dark
And relieve themselves with
squeals
In the shadows of the streets
Where poor boys elbowed up
To sneak a peek at something
They might never see again
Today we often hear
That no one builds that way
Anymore,
As if we might just understand
Why the lions left behind
are now
possessed by men
Simply looking for a seat;
The boys who chilled
To the lion's roar
Grew to fear the wreckage
Even more -
The vacant looks
Of royal embryos
Decomposing in the dark.
_______________________________________

Waiting Lady

On a strand of asphalt
in-between the blinking colored lights
of the One Stop All-Night Newstand
and the blurred corona on the corner
she paces, tilting headlong
clutching at her bag,
peeking out her collar
for the bus.
She mutters in her sleeve
as she nears a turn
around the papers,
bobbing for a headline
like a sip of tea.
She counts her change
like numbers for the lottery
she's often thought of buying
but never had the time to.
She tightens her scarf
as she nears the autos,
slowing for Stop Sign.
The moon is full,
stars sprinkle in the pitch.
Two alley cats walk side-by-side
and follow her
until she turns
back into herself.
_______________________________________

"...Johnny Comes Marching Home..."

We cannot
Know our history
Unless we watch
The personalities
Who slip through
Time and space
To reappear
Again...
I agonized for days
Cross-matching
Soldier letters
From our Civil War
With old photographs
Of the men I saw
Posing in their uniforms
With weapons;
Rough hewn faces
Shadowed by shapeless beards
Who wrote with sensitivity
And the eloquence of poets...
Early one morning
I heard voices
Rousing from the Street:
Man to man camaraderie
In short line jokes
Punching subtleties
They all understood.
Men I'd never seen before
In any train
Or neighborhood.
Were leafleting
For the Grand opening
Of a new department store.
Tanned by early Spring
With grizzled hair
And beards
Which sometimes matched,
But often didn't,
They dappled
In the changing light
Like camouflage
Hauling leaflets
In duffel bags
They looked like scouts
Moving in the dawn
Before a battle...
One man slipped
In his rush
And others hurried
To his aid -
Gentling voices
Horsing him to laughter;
Outstretched arms
Lifting him to song,
Shouldering a line of march
Between the faces
And the thoughts I saw
Which now seemed
Gloved as one.
_______________________________________

Roses For Sale

On a wicker table
With the blurring moon
As a backdrop,
Color signs jack up the price
Of single long stem roses.
Peddled by an ingenious Yankee
potter
Hanging by a shoestring
mustache;
Fingering serpentine ceramic
vases
Glazed in different shades of
red.
Bulging at the seams of a canvas
chair,
An obese older woman folds her
arms
Around her print breasts
Like the keeper of peasant
secrets.
Tin foil dishes smeared with milk
Draw two smoky cats,
Rubbing static at her rolled
down stockings.
Emerald eyes nodding to the
customers
As they hunch
What dreams are conjured up
While listening to a balalaika
Play a staccato of sharp notes
Melting midnight in a Russian
garden.
_______________________________________

April Hours

There are those troubled
April hours
When all the grinding
Splintered breaks
Hammering the cities' song
Fall into total silence...
Thumping blind man steps
Into the bathroom
As we plod by faith alone,
Moving in the whirlpool
Of that lingering dream.
We stand inside the bathroom
light
With the discomforting reflection
Of our underwear
And swollen eyes creating the
same way;
Befuddled by the jumble
Of Friday being Sunday
Or some such other mix up
Of the days -
The dog braces at the back gate,
His deep brown eyes
Blinking the confusion
Of the clouds and sun
Racing in the sky
With the uneasiness
Of two subway cars
Rolling past each other
In opposite directions;
Never being certain if they are
even moving,
Or which way...
_______________________________________

Te-Amo

Long sought after
Magazines
Of persuasions
Few outside Manhattan
Read
Or
Understand
Hook along
The endless racks
Of glossy colored covers.
Together they adrenaline
Every flavor of our passions,
With celebrities
And pedigrees
In dogs and cats
And mongrel bikers
Who worship Harleys
Next to none.
Sports like surfing
And karate
Shingle over porno queens-
Two kids joke
While browsing
In this gallery
How the White Sox Pitcher
Seems to touch
Suggestively
The naked dancer,
As they smile
Just like the couple
Making love
In the back end of the store...
All the while
The negligee of Brooklyn's evening
Has slipped beyond
The asphalt moat
But inside TE-AMO
And almost to the curb
The nighttime looks like day.
Tans and sunburns
Come to life
And teenage girls
Stare
And brush their hair
Too long
At every full view mirror
White fluorescence everywhere
Megawatt an arcade atmosphere -
Candy, mints and chewing gum
Look too good
To pass by...
And so they linger,
Half posing like some
Brooklyn tough
Who've reached
Inside a library
Where everyone's
At home.
_______________________________________

Side Roads

There are plaid shirt men
In every town
Shadowed by old baseball caps
Who look as if
They've always been there.
They seem to slide
From one pump stations
Sing-songing directions
To lost pilgrims
In hatchbacks
Pulling in towards twilight;
Moon-eyed with the bewilderment
Of immigrants.
Decipering a new language,
Fumbling with folded road maps
Which read like dated
Maps of Africa...
The side roads
Of America
Reach back into our history;
Bending the imagination
As we grasp to find
Something else
Tiring with the engine's hum
Along the endless Interstates.
If we stay a while
We begin to see
The plaid shirt man's identity;
His baseball cap and pickup truck
Blend invisibility
With morning talk
Through coffee smoke
At the local dinner's gossip.
The side roads
Start to look familiar
With their ancient Indian names
Rhyming a completion
The way some words
Beg for repetition...
Then the hour
We greet our own reflections
In a car of pilgrims lost
While passing through -
Smiling just outside our eyes
Because we know
What's swimming through their
heads.
_______________________________________

Global Trails

Our global trail is single file
For those whose doubts
Were left behind
The swinging door downstairs -
Those who put away their boyish
grins
And open minds in the magic of
discovery
For loyalty to the answers.
They make their plans for global
warming
Ozone holes
Deforestation
And Third World civil wars
From a frame of reference
Well outside of guessing
What no none things for sure...
Safe at last, they feel,
The naked tribesmen smile at them
Partly hidden by the trees.
They keep their women out of
sight
But belly laugh at the photographs
And their reflection in the lenses.
All the while the experts peer
With the frozen smile of
veterinarians -
The tribesmen paint their death
masks on,
Guessing what must come to pass
With men whose faces
Say it all.
_______________________________________

The Couple

It was fashionable
In the Spring
For couples to stroll
Past the gates
Of the First Reformed Church
And cross the street
Into the park.
There,
The almost hazy balm
Of summer
Played a Sunday hide-and seek
With the dappled breeze
Of moving maples high above.
The most romantic path
To the center lake
Found the couple staring
At the prostitutes
Perched on every bench:
Sallow girls
Straddling their teens
Looking corpse-like
With deep red rouge
And hemoglobin lips...
The couple turned to thoughts
About their daughter,
Away at college,
Looking like a sister
Of one poor pretty girl
Soliciting with the painful mime
Of unconvincing gestures.
Further on,
Older men and boys
In faded plaids
Were strewn along the grass
With bottles all around.
Their day was measured
In the twilight sleep
Of drugs and wine.
They stared like old stray dogs
Panting in the shade
Beside them -
Clouded with the invisibility
Of cataracts...
The couple turned
Back to reach the street
In silence
Of defeat,
With steps more suited
To striding through deep snow.
With one
last look
They scanned the city-skyline
Evoking promises
Of these modern times...
They shook their heads
In disbelief
That this was,
After all,
The U.S.A.
In 1895.
_______________________________________

For The Gold

The march for full equality
Seems like corrective surgery
For those who wait inside the
wings
For the opportunity
To stand inside the spotlight
And take their bows
On center stage -
But behind each mother's promise
Of success for every child,
Stands the bleak reality
That winning isn't really good
enough
If it isn't for first place.
The bronze and silver medalist
Learns to sulk outside
The limelight of the Gold:
Replaying private daydreams
For a lifetime
Of all that might have been -
Living with the dark side
Of our dreams
About success.
_______________________________________

Cavemen

New York subway workers
Dusk their quitting time
With powder burns on faces,
Drawn like nightime twisting
curiosity
At finishing up the day-shift,
Tunneling underground.
Tattered orange flags
Limp not far behind
Like warning signals out of place;
Stumbling into blurs
Like tired soldiers glide in groups,
Slowly dragging a retreat to homes
They can't remember.

Disappearing memories
Overflow monotony
Like blank stares fill the emptiness
In-between slats that look the same;
Evenly divided rails
Tracking to eternity
As tunnels
Up ahead
Stab holes
In the horizon.
_______________________________________

City's Edge

The city's edge
Is measured by
The coiled intensity
Of narrow paths
Elbowing the joggers
As they strain into competitors;
Long before the Marathon
Kicks its embryonic legs
Into their egos...
Sunday bikers learn
To wax and grease
Their hubs and gears
Incessantly;
Arching their spines
To become one
With their machines
Against prevailing winds.
Designated two lane paths
Muddled by sand and glass
Mask the bikers grim
With the determination
To overcome
That which was never intended...
Beneath the din of every
Overcrowded Avenue
And traffic jam
Heated past the boiling point
There is the whisper
To move on
In ways our children
Will discover
_______________________________________

Smiles And Giants

As a city child
My memory of crowds
Filled our apartment
With monuments of relatives
Who smiled back
Only when I looked up
To squeeze past
And find my mother;
Moving in the borderland
Where dream and nightmare
Tease each other constantly -
Much like the sense
Of standing lost and motionless
On a July beach
Where every woman
Looked like mother from a
distance...
I think I learned
To smile that way
Or else the dry moth panic.
Sometimes today
My instinct conjures up
That smile,
Pressed into the rear of
elevators
With giants blocking
Any view of the door;
An opening there
Is a fleeting glance
Of the world outside.
This narrow box
Which moves
But doesn't seem to.
I like the giants
So much more
When they leave.
The open door
Regulates my breathing
But then there is no need
To smile and turn away
Because I feel the smiles
Might tell the giants
Much more than they need to
know -
And certain things
Are best kept in
The family.
_______________________________________

The Grocery

The only nearby grocery
Closed down
Because crime was
Very high...
He was robbed
So many times
He charged us more
For food
To cover losses.
But when he couldn't
Get insurance
He boarded up
His windows
Behind the rusting
Iron Gate -
He left us with
The Gangs
And drugs;
And the need
To find another
Place to live.
_______________________________________

Quarry People

The silent man
Breakfasts early morning.
Throwing up his basement doors
Like crashing drawers of
silverware;
Slicing china concrete streets
Where even pigeons jump in
flight...
And peeking at his car
As if to catch it driving off
Somewhere he might wish to be,
While never leaving home.

Across the street
They gray bun lady
Shuffles out the side door.
Shaking for her balance
In-between the pail of spilling soap
And iron brush.
She kneels,
Bending at her front stoop altar.
Her tilting left side stares
Like whispered prayers
Across the bleaching brick and
mortar,
No one ever uses.

The midnight sliver tabby
Stripes the nighttime camouflage
Like bouncing off the asphalt;
Hunching as he sprays the stairs
And blinks contentment into sleep
Underneath the nearby car.
_______________________________________

The Mask

He knows he's being watched
Even in the lounge
As her slowly turns the pages
Of a book
Everyone is talking about
Over lunch
In the executive's cafe.
He's tailored conservatively
But with a subtle hint
In his tie and shoes
Which makes a statement
No one can quite overlook, and no
one does.
He has learned to ask
The kinds of questions
Which don't offend
But cannot be fully answered -
Making him just smart enough
To be placed on the winning team
Without the possibility
Of personal failure.
By instinct he understands
When being late is chic,
While coming earlier
Than the rest
Has niched for him
The promise of success.
He's adored by most
While no one knows him
Well enough
To gain an inkling
Of the man behind the mystery
Belly laughing to the latest jokes
From the all night dinner.
In the echoes down the hall
The sound as familiar
As the callers on all night
Radio shows -
As irritable as anyone
Whose day is night
Where the sour smells of heat
Have no escape.
_______________________________________

B.M.T.

There's a dinginess today
Which comes by way
Of oxidizing iron:
The armpit of the elevated subway
Burning, screeching, sliding
On the third-rail;
Splintering chips of fire
Falling like black lace on the asphalt.
Flashes out of lives behind windows:
An empty chair
Shrinking by a yellow shade.
An ashtray with a cigarette
Smoldering signals no one hears.
The newsprint smearing
Everyone a miner;
Rocking in their chairs
With several minutes more
Before it stops
And the helmet lights
Tap each lonely way to work.
_______________________________________

The One That Got Away

For many years
People at the lake
Used to think I loved to fish
As much as I drank beer;
After all, the baitshop leaned
Its inside wall
Against the stucco Bar & Grill
Like the wrong friend
Walking the right one home.
The lake was full of laughter then
When echoes pierced the perfumed
stillness
On early summer mornings.
Often in my madness
I was balancing a headache on one
heel
To fish with her two brothers.
Long before she appeared
With that teasing freckle face.
I stood watching from the boat
Wondering if she was ever out
there
Watching me
And how ridiculous I must have
looked
Scanning to an empty shore...
I came to guess
Her brothers never knew
Or really understood,
But when she left
I took to fishing
Without bait
On a rusted iron boat
With many holes...
I was afraid to take
Her picture anywhere;
To hold on staring
Or to let go
Of what was always fading -
Drawn ghostly without freckles
There were eisps of red
Without a hint of dazzle
Or the mystery of hair;
Not the intrigue of her flesh
Once married to its soul.
_______________________________________

The Night Shift

If you've never seen
The night shift
You've never seen the city
Hiding like an outlaw.
It growls on brittle batteries
In the uncleared icy streets
Where autos look like tombstones
And the street lamps look
As cold and clear
As the moon hung in Planitarians...
Pass the main corridor,
Bend to the left,
And only a string of glaring light
bulbs
Deceives the shadows
Of bayonets of mops and buckets
And empty soda cans
Trailing to the freight.
This is not a place
Of stainless steel doors
And pleasant recessed lightning
Where the guests up front
Trade niceties with maroon suited
operators
With gold braids in their caps.
They are uniformed like captains
From some make-believe land.
They baritone out the floors
To make the guests believe
They can also perform a marriage.
The night shift lifts itself
With rolled up sleeves in January
And steamy styrophone coffees;
His confident deamaneour
Disarms competitors
Who realize a frontal profile
Might well reveal something
They have always left unsaid
About themselves.
He touches every project
Strong enough to give it shape
But leaves his gloves on
Before success becomes
A self fulfilling prophecy
He is the cunning of
The city mouse
Who is never trapped;
The cleverness of those
Who take
And never give
Those who touch
And are not touched
While leaving
With the mask
Still on their face.
_______________________________________

High School

There are never
Any warning signs
About the half-truths
Dressed up like absolutes
Issued to them
Like an Army lecture
In bloated wordy monologues,
Fading into hums
Without a
hint of controversy
Or a breeze of expectation...
The unwritten laws demand
A semblance
Or order and conformity
Much like factories
When covering the quota
For the day -
Measuring productivity
By categories
Designed for easy measurement:
Margin spaces
Essay length
Dates and names
Or words on lists
Which never touch the soul
Or linger in their heads
After quitting time.
In the updraft
Of our economy
Where some believe
Supply creates demand,
They are subject to
A vast array
Of subject information --
Piecemeal bits
Of different foods
Sampled without tasting
Or reflecting
What their palate
Might be saying
Later on...
They are taught
Democracy
With the bathroom pass
And seating plans
Placing them
Where others want;
Waiting for the anonymity
Rolling in with the fog,
After attendance.
_______________________________________

Fast Cars

Just once
I'd like to floor it,
Doing 90
On a nearby stretch
And feel the swirling
Rush of freedom
Making everything
Familiar
Carousel into a blur -
Melting asphalt
steel and other cars
Into something
Like an aerie
Coo of pigeons
In an underpass
Where no one walks
Except by bobbing up and down...
But I always second guess
My brakes
And panicked drivers everywhere
Turning the wrong way -
The inkling of a memory
Or childhood premonition
When the living leave the
graveyard scene
And nothing moves
Except the wind
Breezing anonymity.
_______________________________________

American Imprints

The car
Is everything
AMERICAN -
Private property
Worshipped
In the weekend cathedral
With caresses
Of a sensual massage
To keep it looking
Young forever.
It is the chamber
Of first loves
For teenage boys
Edged on
By the purring engine
At Lookout Point
To make the right
Moves
With a girl
He will remember
Well past middle age;
Seeing her
In its make and color
As the nostalgia
He will sometimes share
Even after
He forgets her name...
It stretches Friday afternoon
Into Sunday night
With the widest circles
Of experience -
Pioneer adventures
Filling up the lunch hours
And coffee breaks
With adrenilened stories
To pass through
The anonymity of work
Like a dripping nighttime faucet
You learn to run
The fan to...
The thrill behind
The wheel,
Strapped inside the pilot's seat
Before the haunting
Red and yellow panel lights
Baroques the senses
For the journey
Where the unexpected
Tingles
Like imprints
Blurring up ahead.
_______________________________________

Night Tow

In every city
There were clever men
Who wagered on the odds
Of helping those
Inside the narrow streets
And alleyways
Of places
Made invisible as slums...
In times when headlines
Canopied prosperity
Everywhere,
He stitched the fraying fringes
As his shawl of politics;
There he saw embroideries
Of widows without pensions
And men retired
By automation
Whose children
Needed some connection
As a jump-start
Back to life.
He saw them all
As motorists
Stranded on an empty stretch
With dusk nailing down
Like a coffin
In a graveyard
Beading in the rain...
When indicted
Later on in his career
He seemed surprised
At the naivety
Of questions from the Press.
He pulled in his cigar
And said: Gentlemen,
Would you ask
The tow truck driver
For his license
And permit
As he pulls you
From a winter's night
To the lights
Of a motel?
Bathrobed in a soft chair
By a window
Looking out
At the garage Dalmatian
Disappearing in the snow.
_______________________________________

Artificial Tree

Having little contact
Of our own
With any type of tree
It seems to feel
Quite live and real,
Without the shedding mess
Which makes us bend
And ache
About the strains of holiday;
With gifts exchanged
On endless lines
To sallow clerks
Eyebrowing disappointing
news.
It seems to much more
Evergreen
Like perfect paintings
We have seen
Done by number -
Cellophaned kits
Which promise
Everyone
The genius of an artist's touch...
News of War
and famine
Overseas
And ethnic animosities
Drive us deeper
Into malls
Where Christmas songs
All sound the same
Like elevator music
In and out
Of dentist chairs;
Arriving home
To building lobbies
Tinseled with the kind of snow
We much prefer
For traveling.
Champaign celebrations
Where we gift others
With our egos
And pretend to listen
Cautiously to theirs...
In some deep wood
With just a candle
By the window
Someone opens up the door
And scents the evergreens
At midnight,
Pinching in the cold.
The dogs are silent
In the kennel
Just twitching in their sleep,
And the stars
Just wait and watch
For anything we think.
_______________________________________

Lock-Steps

Once
The spontaneity
Of dancing slaves
Was set to rhythms
We might guess
To sublimate all the hate
And emptiness
They felt as slaves -
With changing pace
And subtle gestures
The drummer danced
The dancer's steps
And the dancer
Played the drums;
Joined as one
Inside the mystery
Of ritual...
Now logos label everyone
Stamping uniformity
Without a hint
Of mystery -
Expressions tailored
For record jackets
Birthed by contracts
With residuals
And personal appearances...
The diversity
Of what had been
Inside the dancers
And the drums
Is nuked by every video-
Filmed impressions we adopt
Like the false identities
Of slaves
Moving through their work
While grinning
At their masters.
_______________________________________

Invasions

The auto industry
Of that era
Put four wheel rocket ships
Within the range
Of young Flash Gordons
everywhere -
Those whose childhood savings
And a paper route
Placed them in
The captain's seat.
They peeled to
Fast food parking lots
With their loyal crew
And blondes in pony tails
Looking like the female leads
In sci-fi movies
Playing every weekend
At the drive-in
On the edges of their town.
On the way,
And going home,
They passed by lonely fields.
Eerie in the moonlight,
Quiet like the stars
They knew were filled
With aliens on the move
To steal their dreams
And drain their souls
And more
They never spoke about...
Movies
Cars
And parking lots
Trained them for Korea
And even Vietnam -
Certain they would find
The Emperor Ming
Hidden somewhere in the hills
Or in a jungle village
In a tunnel underground.
_______________________________________

Bronx Ornaments

From my windowsill
I could see the snow
Clothe the bulky cars
On Bronx streets
Disguised like Westchester
For a while.
Each auto ballooned
The way that children
All looked far in winter then -
Wobbling in coats
A few sizes too large.
We were all inflated
With the drunken ego
Of our Post War adolescence,
Before "They" also get the bomb...
My deepest memories of winter
Stayed as sailor's dreams
Aboard those plymouth schooners
Sailing past the bleary side
Of Empire living rooms
And snake plants
Dusted once a week by ritual.
My secret hero
Was old Pontiac,
Chromed in his prime
with the determined stare
Of chief of hoods;
But, in the storm
He seemed to find it hard
To see the white men
In the Bronx of
Long Ago.
_______________________________________

The Line

Waiting for the picket signs
They talked on the line
Without the factory roar
Between them -
The despair
That workers always feel
As they stand alone
To face off with machinery...
Their children
Played together
After school,
And even teacher's names
Rang some familiarity...
Waiting for the signs,
Lettered with a living wage
And other basic benefits
Denied then and their families
They unioned in a special way:
In the jokes
And stories
Passed along the line
They engineered
A new community -
Those united
By the common sense
To make their lives
A little better,
In the ways
They felt like family now
With those
The factory
Had kept hidden.
_______________________________________

Circled Wagons

In the age
of Fission
Our covered wagons
Went underground
As state of the art
Bomb shelters -
For many
The family adventured
Through the drills
Of stocking food
And checking weapons
To make their final stand...
Closing wagons
Underground
Children carried parlor games,
Ages 10 to 12,
On strategies for winning
While parents cradled
TV. set like infants
In a blanket,
Setting up their source
Of news and entertainment,
With a special hook-up
The brochure suggested
To get all channels
Through the holocaust...
With the reappearing
Shadows
Of Berlin and Lebanon,
They changed their sets
And parlor games.
Cementing cracks along the
Walls,
They learned to cover
More and more
With color maps
And grade school
Finger painting.
Overtime,
Another attic
Webbed underground -
A dusty vault
Of memories
Damp with all the certainty
Of closing wagons
And the enemy
Outside.
_______________________________________

The Horse

ONLY
The rings of truth
Felt in ancient rhyme
Makes heroes
come to life -
Sight and insight granted us
Are the ways by which
Ulysseys and Achilles
Seem more at home in living
rooms
Than in the Dark lit maze
Of Schleimaann's graves...
What artifacts remain
Moulders as tarnished weaponry
Without a hint of spirit
Or the twinkling genious
Of Odysseus musing by a campfire;
Imaging the Trojan Horse
As a triumph of the ego...
His glinting smile
Of victory
Seen by no one
In high places -
The strategy of legend
Beginning only as a game.
_______________________________________

3rd Avenue El

I imagine
Some still think the elevated
subway
Caused the deprivation
On the Bowery -
The sooty shadows
Caped a dreary atmosphere;
Plummeting ones' sense of hope
Like dream of drowning
When everything is inky green...
The homeless and wino men
Cuddly in its nooks
While the one's passed out
Stared back down
At the monstrous subway sounds
Racing over them;
Bathing in a sea of iron sparks
Blanketing their winter sleep.
When the El came down
They raced to other darker corners
To escape the light's diffusion
Of the pipe dreams they had made
Into reality;
Perfected through all the years
No one really cared to push
Beyond a policemen's frisk
Or a nightstick jolting in the dark.
Few of value took the time
To fathom what they saw or
thought
Or how the El
In any way made a difference
Beyond the rising price of real
estate
In a prime Manhattan space.
_______________________________________

Lost In Space

I was lost and tired;
Hungry for so many days
In a very distant land.
He held my head
And gave me drink and food.
With a comforting hand.
When I came to,
All I could see
Was a green face
Staring back at me
like supper...
I ran with new found energy
And in a clearing
By myself
It occured to me
He could have caught me
Had he been that hungry.
_______________________________________

Staten Island

The cataracts of first morning light
Pinched the grains of red
In the gray shingle would
Of the sandy island of my birth.
Hulking lads hired out
Of orphanages
Semicircled round the shed
Awaiting orders for the day.
They passed cigarettes
In the barreled fingers
Looking like the potato roots
Hiding from them in the fields.
Always peering the periphery
They looked as of the nuns
Of their nightmares
Might appear at any time...
Vectoring in a straight line
From Coney Island's Parachute
Jump
Erector-setting like a giant toy
In the distance
Were the pack of dogs
As large as calves
Who seemed to touch the Bay;
Pawing in at Brooklyn,
Hurdling atop one another
In a dance step
Flying clumps of sand
Into the sky...
The boys kneed into the mounds
Stretching their hangar muscles
From their necks
Into their necks
Into their arrows,
Tearing like terriers
At the twisted crop
Fighting back at every pull.
How much like the rest of us
Who watched without a radio
In the somber clouds
Of a passing storm
Which never rains
I daydreamed the humidity
Of my casket lowered down.
Looking up
I see the orphans
Pawing for potatoes;
Scratching at my coffin's lid,
Then moving on
To leave me standing all alone
On the Staten Island ground.
_______________________________________

City Block

"On a city block
Not far from here
A man huddles in the coat
To brave the Autumn dusk
To the grocer for some milk
For morning coffee.
Up ahead, five young BLACKS
Congregate by a stoop.
He ups his pace
And passes them
Looking off in feigned disinterest.
'Round the corner
He hears steps behind
Or maybe to the side.
He sweats in the November chill
With July inside his chest.
He starts to trot
Toward a police car
Parked just up ahead.
He turns to point
With heaving breaths
To nothing
But a city block
Of loosened cans
And tree limbs
Scratching the concrete."
_______________________________________

American Dream

In spacious homes
Large enough
To chill
A July heat wave,
The lonely hum
Of air conditioners
Begins to seal
Them off...
Private T.V.'s
And telephones
Branch them
Far apart
From experiences
they seldom have
The time
Or will
To share.
Slowly they begin
To lose
The art of conversation;
Taking up
Redecorating schemes
Which promise
That new lightening in the living
room
And bright colors in the den
Will help to make
Their house
A home again.
The luxuries
Of separate bathrooms
And cars
Soundproofs them
On journey's
Where only one
Can go...
But sometimes,
Late at night,
The edginess
Creeps in -
Wondering why
They're lonely
And afraid
In the middle
Of their dream.
_______________________________________

Public Painting

The beach is littered
Like a battlefield
On the day after
A brittle hum buzzes
From shaking air conditions
In 100 year old bungalows behind
her,
Blending with the bees and horse
flies
Swarming on the uncollected
garbage
On the beach.
Her easel and canvas
face
The higher morning sun
Drying each brush stroke shorter
Than she might have seen them
When stirring colors in her
thoughts.
In the shimmering thermals of this
July
Nothing looks as crystalline
As the jagged rock-like profiles
She gives the finger jetties...
The bathers stand behind her,
Taking off their sun glasses
As their faces seem to hunt
For something left unsaid
In the parallax between the painting
And the scene.
they saddle clap to the sand
From the boardwalk scene
With the shrug of house painters
Watching art
For the first time.
Their drinks are thermosed cold
And all the sandwiches are labeled.
Stepping carefully through the
glass
Chipped sand
They find the water different
Than they had imagined
On the grinding subway ride.
They churn the ocean white
In water fights -
The artist moves
Decembering the sea
In ways which make the jetties
Finally look at home.
_______________________________________

The Fellowship

Daughters and sons
Often mistake their parents
In the late afternoon crowd
By the senior citizens center
Bleached gray by the spin
Cycle of their years,
Even ethnic features
Seem to disappear
As if all were soaked
In a common gene pool
At the last stop
Before going home forever
Only grandchildren
Under ten
Vector in on their own
Without confusion
Running, hands open,
Their missing teeth grins
Handshake the elderly
In a fellowship
Closest to the source.
_______________________________________

Hide-and-Seek

Chameleons
Of the changes
In society,
We shed our cowboy hats
And pistols
For futuristic laser toys
To face the stars
And greet the newest mystery
With the ancient attitudes
Of conquest -
Adrenalined like
Trackers in the distant West
Whose grim determination
Nosed them to a trail
Of other aliens,
Whispering in the moonlight,
Squinting for a hint
Of where they lay in wait
To ambush us again...
All our games
Of hide-and-seek
In every galaxy
And badlands
Seem to have escaped
The final hiding place
To end the game
And lead us to another -
The footprint
Just behind our boots;
The startling sound
Growling in our stomach.
_______________________________________

The Dreaming Time

As a child
I learned to take my dreams
Straight from The Dreaming Time
Totemed as a memory
Sculpted from the faces
I felt looked most
Like me...
What was familiar
Seemed as contemptible as the
Fifties;
The stranger
As close to me
As the junkyard chow dog
Who only let me pat him -
Making me feel
part Chinese...
I was more a poet
Then
Than now -
Dizzy in the draped light
Of the empty afternoon house,
With the cedar smelling drawers
and camphored closets,
I dervished in the frenzy
Of my rampage
Like an old widow's panic
Searching for the lost
Lottery ticket...
I may have left initials
And names,
A dog brother or two,
Screwdrivered into the stone
windowsill
Where no one ever looked.
A kind of cave art
Like an American Lascaux;
A pictorial poetry
Of The Dreaming Time
And the lost tribe
Of my birth.
_______________________________________

Rapid Transit

I took to reading
Faces
On the New York City
Subway lines -
When the roar squeaks
Like screams
Along the ribbon bends.
I wonder
If they close their eyes
When all the lights go out.
Always the returning lights
Hit upon a man
Too large for any seat.
He wiggles his rear
As if to find an extra comfort in
his bed.
He is a native to these tunnels
Bending everywhere -
Once I walked on toes
On drizzled chilly nights in
Brooklyn
Looking for some lost address;
Squinting at the easement
Rottweillers
Inching to the gate
Like jungle cats looking for a
careless voyager.
There are women looking at their
nails
As a distraction from their lives.
Some are clowned with makeup
For the secretary pool
To cover black and blues
Along their arms.
Their lipstick turns a smile
Long dead inside their eyes -
We are a city where the circus
died
But never really left.
The men who read the New York
Post
Are searching from some self
defense
Against assaults
Their eyes move just below
The stares
Of those they think
Look like killers
In earlier editions...
Once I read Kempton
On the old straw seats
And felt his words
In all the things we might
become;
I laughed when I missed
My stop.
Dreaming was the best of living then
And fate was just another train
For imagination.
_______________________________________

Strange Places

Many places webbing
Off these Southern roads
Feel like a battlefield
Left fallow-since the civil war.
Fallen branches shadow skeletons
In the eerie quiet
Cemetery dark.
The soil sponges to my sneakers
Like a mattress left to rot;
Swallowing the uneasiness
Of squeezing on so many
Unmarked graves.
A field of long grass
Just beyond the jungle pines
Feels alive and dead
Like an island
Never visited -
A piebald horse
With a shark's dumb stare
Freezes in a silhouette.
It stands dead center in the grass
With the sun on fire
Around its head...
I bolt away
With the panic of a man
Struck blind;
Back to the motel
And trucker's stop.
There the neon sign
With missing letters
Blink the night against my
bedroom wall. -
Coding like an early memory
Of downtown Patterson
New Jersey.
_______________________________________

The Assumption

The beaches
Out on Coney Island
Look like a Potter's Field
Where bulky iron mesh baskets
Tilt over barren graves -
Raked at night
And littered through the day.
Summer has drilled itself
Into a mirage of old blocks of ice,
The air conditioner's hum
From a neighbor's clapboard
bungalow
Stares the sleepless into madness,
Waiting for the next mosquito
buzz...
But, she has stretched beyond the season
For the yellowed bridal dress
In the closet where it has hung
For over forty years.
He was lost in some last assault
In the final days
And never saw her in it.
Would - be gypsy fortune tellers
and bottomed out old carny barkers
Snake the way of her procession
To the beach.
Bathers hush
And stand the silence
Of a drowning.
These risen spectres
Of her winter nights
Wade in and wonder,
Feeling so alive!
_______________________________________

Urbania

He stands
Like a parody of old 5th Ave
At Easter.
Perhaps I saw him once
On a T.V. movie
Glimpsed inside the umbra
Of the Thanksgiving glaze.
A frail old gentleman
Smiles and tips
His straw hat
Somersaulting down his arm
To catch a lucky grin
From pretty Brooklyn girls
Fussing with their knapsack bags
On steerage to Manhattan...
He may have pivoted
On a bamboo cane
Like Fred Astaire,
And the flower in his lapel
Seemed not for squirting
Those whose seltzered laughs
Held him in ridicule...
The gray and navy workshirts
Huddle in the shadows
Just below.
Peeling platform columns like
wrinkled
Elephant legs
Hold their secrets
For the day's adventure
In the safety of the
Armpits of the B.M.T.
_______________________________________

Poor Man's Paradise

It is hard
To separate
The angry
From the mad
On Coney Island
As they giant step
On the boardwalk
Hurling curses
At the surf;
They vector
In-between the focus
Of the early morning joggers
And they spook the seagulls
Feeding on the trash...
Just when the Parachute Jump
Was coated
As a landmark
For the few alive
Who took the jump
As a distant memory
Of this disappearing neighborhood,
Steeplechase Pier,
Elbowing The Atlantic
With a Brooklyn like defiance
Was amputated suddenly
By a storm
Which flooded every bungalow
For miles around -
No one on the streets
Seems to read the signs.
Hookers sliver in the weekend
crowds
Painted in their uniforms,
Sizing up the possibilities
With a throaty whore laugh
At every John.
Laughing ladies are as old
As any Coney Island memory
Of black silk on red satin filled with
straw...
Merry-go-rounds
Still dizzy children.
Stretching for the ring
Like a tribal rite;
Adults watch them
Uneasy with the Jack-in-the-box
Music
Racing on their nerves -
Stirring ancient childhood fears
Of impaled riders;
Pretending to take pictures
Of the children
In a blur...
The Stillwell subway craters
In the crowds
Smelling like a Clorox
Mix of day old puke
and urine...
Carney barkers
Megaphone the dusk
Like distant thunder
Lightning the side shows
With the fireworks overhead.
Senses blend
Syrupy with the smell
Of peanuts
Steaming in July
And cotton candy
Teases hunts of
A Sunday toothache
Dressed in pink.
A bag lady
From the adult home
Laughs with no
Apparent reason
While the project wino
Raves and swipes
At everyone
Who stares at her
With pockets full
of tokens
From the subway ride
Back home.
_______________________________________
_______________________________________
_______________________________________