The relationship between heat and gravity January 24, 2007
Posted by storypoems in brooklyn, nyc.add a comment
We have the kind of heat
in our old tenement inspired by slumlords
of the immigrant poor’s memory. The kind
that clanks its way into oblivion
degrees, makes your nostrils beg
for saline, makes rice paper blinds
above the radiator blow in the breeze.
The window is shut.
Nora, the subletting French exchange
student helping to gentrify the 4th
floor, knocked on my door last night
just 5 minutes after a fantastic crash
shook the dust out of the drywall.
I need help, it fell, I cannot.
In her living room, I laughed. They don’t
have air conditioners in France. Our heat was
too much for Nora, she opened the
window. The A/C dangled outside by its
circuit-breaking cord, like an anvil,
like a grand piano.
We hauled it in.
I showed her: this is how you close
the heat down in our building.
Essex Street Market August 3, 2006
Posted by storypoems in LES, crowd pleasers, everything, my favorites, nyc.add a comment
I ran into Henry today, he owns the
Essex Street Market building.
Smells like old cigars, matted dreads
and stale construction. A hot city day,
breathing sidewalk and tar.
Henry told me his plan to screw
the vulture capitalists
was to put a high-rise
of low-income
housing on top of the market,
power it with solar panels –
“let those hotel bastards
look at us then!”
He said, “You don’t kill
the goose that laid the golden
egg cuz then you got no
more eggs.”
He said, “I remember when
I was young
and I wanted to be rich,
so I went out
and got rich.
Big fuckin’
deal.
I remember the first time I kissed
a girl and the time after that
and the time after that and
it was all in my head,
do you
understand?”
pine June 26, 2005
Posted by storypoems in everything.add a comment
cracked, cut down, raw
i am counting with you the rings
while the sap seeps
out, drips and decorates
your fingertips, smiling,
counting, one
two
thirty
Event horizon December 3, 2004
Posted by storypoems in everything, nyc.5 comments
Sneaking through barred windows over fire
escape, barbed wire on roof next door catches glinting
sudden sunshine after early December rainstorm.
Furious event horizon passes over with the
speed of NYC rush hour pedestrian traffic.
Wind kicks in, knocks me down in the
crosswalk of Broadway.
I knew it was coming.
Carport October 31, 2004
Posted by storypoems in everything, my favorites.add a comment
Bare walls and rolling down hills, climbing
back to the top for a tumble. Holding 4th of July sparklers,
ghosts in the goblin. A picture of tension I never
had is recognized in pumpkins of memories. My mother holds
her breath, my father exhales too loudly.
These are her people.
There are valves that release
and close off blood that ties us together in times of
inconvenience, insecurity, and unreason. I am inside the currents
of her joy and surrender. Her desperate need to
empower me shines on the surface.
He mows the lawn to break away fallen leaves, to leave the
women to their kitchen talk. He is outnumbered in his
old age. A woman is missing, I am standing next to her footprints
in the home she never abandoned. We sneak cigarettes in the
carport. She hands me the lighter, asks me to ash
like a lady, we laugh. I wish her ghosts away from her
neverhome, haunted with the joy and unreason of
her people, my people.
