NY Giant

My other fantasy
is to suddenly grow
so large
that I am forced to choose my steps
among the miniature buildings
and matchstick bridges.
So mostly I wade in the ocean,
squatting in the harbor,
mounting Lady Liberty at night.
Uncatalogued sea creatures at my flesh!
A soggy bottom, and cold
in the moonglow,
but in an hour's journey
I can catch up with the daylight.

I am sustained by community effort,
uncooked cows by the dozen,
barrels and barrels of wine,
and government cheese.
The only problem
(besides the obvious)
is that I am alone.
People's voices are too small,
and mine too large,
shattering cathedrals when I speak,
and the sounds from below
are like thoughts,
impossible.

Are You Jewish?

An older man came into the restaurant,
saying I looked like a young man

he knew named Howie. He said the hair
was a dead match, which was funny to me

because hair is the most mutable thing
(I had mine highlighted a week ago).

And the old man asked if I was Jewish, and I lied
and said a quarter, which is not quite true.

What else? Well, Italian - I was raised
mostly Catholic, Jesus could kill you - and WASP,

from the Mayflower days with their yams,
and also Syrian, dyers of wool, camel jockeys.

How did those four people get together?
I know! And why?

He said the Jewish part was the best.
I knew you were Jewish, he said.

I agreed and changed my name again.

Rabble on the B

Let's just say,
I thought I would raise
a particular type
of child, but I won't.

I am waiting for the A train when I see
a fluttering file of bright green trees,
little children being herded
uptown to the museum.

They have their own natural history,
bopping their bowling ball heads
to unseen music, and laughing with
hysteria at empty soda cans and benches.
"Keep away from the platform's edge!"

I hope the text books are not too heavy
in your knapsacks, Little Ones.
I hope you know the rules
are not made for any badness in you,
but only for the makers,
so they can drink black coffee
at the local.

A woman wearing STAFF hut huts,
"No one should be singing!"
and gratefully, the savages and me
continued Singing Any Way.

Pack Night

Tribal at Bembe,
whip-cracked by the congas and djembes.
The DJ was so there that he wasn't.
Nicky got roughed up later,
when the girls we took home
attracted some stragglers
who were smoking trees on the corner.
He plugged the dam,
took some kicks to the abdomen
and got out of the corridor fast.

The cops.

The vino frizzante after.

The morning, hung.
I had smoked my mind,
played video golf while the boys dropped rhymes.
We had wrestled our women away from the others,
we were fathers and sons,
tribesmen and brothers.

Meeting With a Slug

Slug on the door,
you give me the willies.
You are near the bottom.
I noticed you when I stepped outside to smoke.

You shimmy along on your own mucus,
and you are a mollusk,
this I know.
You are a snail without a shell.
And perhaps that is the reason
why you give me the willies tonight.

If I salted you,
you would shrivel,
as you did when I was young.
What would you say
if I blew smoke on you now?
What would you say if I spat on you?
I suppose I could crush you,
boot you, stick you, door you,
I've been pissed on too.

You are thinking your way to the bottom
and I hold the door open just enough
so that you will have an easy path
to the ground there below.
You take your time.
You are naked in every way.
I help you down.

Penn Station

The arrivals and departures are announced,

but you cannot hear them.

The rats outside the station scamper

up and down the planters, sniffing out each other’s asses.

A TRENCH COAT by the column shifts

to get a better view of three SHOPPING DAY TEEN GIRLS

in matching winter hats,

with their names painted on cardstock by Chinese street calligraphers,

and they themselves are appraising the MODEL COUPLE floating through,

in their Burberry and Polo,

and the MODEL COUPLE, they themselves in turn are realizing

the arrivals and departures are being announced,

but you cannot hear them.

And then there are the lost ones

sifting through the station trash,

throwing empty beer cans at me,

spitting bile as I pass and try to silence the change in my pockets,

and they sometimes smash the rats on the planters,

and sniff each other’s asses.

They sustain somehow on the refuse and the rats,

and bleed into the linings of their military jackets.

I make the next train.

PANDA PARKA squeezes next to me,

struggling with her bottle.

She’s going on a blind date in Rutherford, New Jersey.

It is so late and so dark,

and I cut my finger opening the lady’s beer.

I call my old girlfriend to tell her I didn’t.

I tell her about this wedding I went to.

I held the pinky of a typical bridesmaid,

as I puked on both our place cards.

She worked at the zoo, which is mythical,

and I kissed that bridesmaid in the cold traffic,

while the groom danced with his mother,

and wept tapioca tears,

and the bride danced with her father,

and owned him once again,

but none of it was real.

I hang up hard.

My old girlfriend is one of those,

who will be looking for the perfect kiss until she dies,

and now because of her, I suppose,

so will I.

LEOPARD SKIN in the corner of the car is on to me.

She wants to taste the salt of my young skin,

she wants my young eyes on her leather.

The conductor charges me the difference.

ALL THE DENIM IN HER CLOSET explodes on my other side,

all over her paperback,

god bless her.

And bless us every one,

and I plug my ears, and the LEOPARD SKIN,

and the station announcements which you cannot hear,

and my old girlfriend's naughty valentines,

and the blithering SATURDAY NIGHTERS,

their open mouths which are blinding me,

their chatter eating through my music,

drowning out the announcements,

the station stops,

the conductor’s face,

a tussle-topped child in the vestibule squawking,

Keep moving

more seats up front

keep moving

you don’t have all day,

but no one hears him.

I don’t hear him.

And my nose is stuffed up,

and I cracked the skin on my knuckle at some point

opening a lady's beer.

Out the window there are plastic buildings,

lychen trees, and cardboard mountains,

plexi-glass rivers, and working stop lights,

and everything is quiet as snow.

There's the King George Inn,

and the Methodist Church,

and the cemetery across the street,

and Pop's Saloon,

and The Old Opera House,

and the post office

with its famous slogan,

which we all know by heart,

and will recite again:

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor fear in the mirror,

nor ashes to ashes, nor dust to dust,

will keep these rats from sniffing each other’s asses,

and falling into mythical love,

and wrestling with styrofoam angels,

and climbing ladders with broken rungs,

and wanting to live in all time/all place -

anywhere but here.

ANYWHERE BUT HERE.

The end of the line is announced,

the arrival and departure,

the last stop,

but no one hears it.

Not even the innocent.

Thoughts on Day and Night

Everything must change now,
as I've seen Brooklyn itself,
the very face of her,
turn all the way toward the sun.

Our neighborhoods and towns -
the little places we are at -
will always arrive at daylight,
having groped their way through the relative dark
of what we call Night.
We huddle as if it has fallen,
the moon and stars a window shade pulled down in old cartoons,
the feeling that night has a smothering weight,
the pioneers who mumbled, "S'getting dark,
and best we camp here 'til the morning."

The night is not a time of day,
but only a place we've gone to:
the other side of the world.

And the light and the dark
will hold hands running in this way,
long after our fingers have stopped their tapping,
and our legs have stopped ambling Westward,
and our wounds have stopped bleeding for good.

As your body rotates in its sleep,
so that one moment, waking, you feel the heat
of your lover's breath on your lips,
and in another wake to find the cool, flat wall,
or the bedroom's mute abyss,
or a dream that is your own,
so too is the planet hurled through the void.
So too does the earth play peep-eye with its brilliant Ma, the sun.
She seems to come and go,
come and go,
but we're the ones who are turning.