I’m out and about on the streets a lot. Mainly in Manhattan. As I get from here to there, I’m part of the matrix of communities and happenings that make up the outside life. People who are peripheral to what Marley called the rat race.
Here are a couple of recent pieces. They’re poems, part of the Slices of the American Dream series.
Thanks for checking them.
he’s standing near the subway entrance
at 44th and 8th
a thin white man
medium height with bright eyes
dressed in slightly worn blue jeans
and a nice striped shirt
that he’s had on
for a few too many days
he’s underdressed for the mild winter day
holding a 5 by 8 piece of lined white paper
wants money no doubt
seems to be in his 30s
but you never can tell
he says his name is Tom and is a vet
i’m thinkin’ iraq war
as he speaks i notice his bad teeth
misaligned with maybe one missing
not quite the british look
more west virginia
he runs his script
like a ball rolling down a hill
bumping along
haltingly picking up steam
he occasionally points to the paper
which has letters and numbers
in several sizes shapes colors
and handwritten fonts
he lives in a vet shelter in new jersey
can stay there as long as he’s workin’
just lost his job
went to the city for a couple of interviews
thinks he maybe landed a gig in brooklyn
gotta get back to the shelter now
he says he got MS
from his mom
who had it before him
the disease usually skips
a generation
but didn’t in his case
he likes this corner we’re on
it’s as far from port authority as he can handle
but a straight shot down 8th avenue
to get back there
it’ll cost him twenty nine fifty to get home
nineteen fifty for one bus, ten dollars for another
he shows this to me
on the piece of paper
written proof
i hand him thirty bucks
his face lights up like a kid
who just got a case of candy
he asks where he can get
something cheap to eat
i point down 44th toward 9th
there’s a pizza place
right off the corner
he hesitates
says i don’t want to
lose this corner
i say it’s one block there
and one block back
as he slowly walks away
i notice his limp
the easel sign
outside Eisenberg’s says
sorry we’re open
raising cholesterol
since 1929
next to it sits
an old guy i know
he’s a slow motion
runaway train
never got a piece
of the rock
the notches on his thighbone
have turned to scars
he goes to the Y every day
calls it the wrinkle room
his bon vivanting days
are behind him
no more
paregoric pall malls
or post-coital
skin glow
now it’s geritol
and wash n wear
desert boots
there’s a bit of
the philosopher
in him
he says you enter the world crawling
and exit it the same way
it’s not Father Time
it’s gravity
he says he’s been relegated
to the dustpan of history
mangling the famous
quote from marx
there’s a madness
to his method
he used to be allergic
to trouble
now he’s allergic
to the world
Trinidad February 1978
The scene at the gate was chaotic to say the least. The combination of a snowstorm and an excessive amount of oversized luggage had delayed our flight by several hours. Babies were crying, then eating, then crying again. Older children were running around every which way. Adult family members seemed to be debating who among them was going to make the trip. There wasn’t even a semblance of security.
Had we known it was going to be like this, we wouldn’t have left the Thai sticks at home. But all was forgotten when we landed in Port of Spain and bounded down the mobile stairway, winter coats in hand, to the steamy tarmac under the blinding sun.
Continue reading “Where There’s Smoke continued…”
