NYC

NYC


Manhattan – the epitome of Man -
Not clever and delightful, but a beast -
Will trap you in a corner and destroy you
After it has taken what is yours.
And operators on the telephone
Protected by their anonymity
Will seize their chance to rip your living flesh,
And no one ever knows that they were there.
And Broadway, once a source of happiness -
Is nothing but a nightmare made of noise,
A bland conceited stance of affectation.
See New York!  Be trampled in the street -
America's the world – and it is dying -
A giant squid or octopus –  the folks
In little towns – crucibles of vice -
Hang their vulgar bigotries on lines
To dry and warm in god's own perfect sun,
In the sky especially for them,
And send their children happily to war.
No place is better.  And the idiot
Sits in Denny's talking to himself.


3-27-14


War


4 a.m.  I couldn't sleep.
I'm tired and I'm sad.
Since New York I've been associated
With a war.
The radio now has a song for me.
A song of few that has a tune,
Harmony and words.
“It's a cold war.”
The song repeats.
Then with ragged rhythm, “Do
You know what you're fighting for?”
Insistent and accusing,
And the words are in my head.
And some 40 years ago,
A woman in the park,
Slouched exhausted on a bench
In a battle helmet,
Put there by Jacqui Schiff or god,
And meant for me to see.
I'm not a warrior.
I just resist.  I do not fight.
And all of my resistance is defeated.
But had I not resisted every
Image that I saw,
I would be a vegetable in Patton.
This is help?  This is contact?
This is an illusion.


3-26-14