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Big
City, Lit
Nicholas Johnson
It’s more than a long, dark road.
You’re in your car, with everything you need in the glove box, back seat,
trunk. You’ve got your smoke, there’s the fog, and some rain, and more
fog, and thoughts of searchlights.
Maybe there’s someone beside you—or
there will be—for who knows how long. A guy thing maybe: a city, a
woman, warm coffee, more smokes.
Stations drift in and out in the
sing-along tease 'til you’ve had enough of the night, the absolute black
Van Gogh claimed didn’t exist. All the tricks, like in a Dylan song, play
by the roadside shoulders.
It’s what you want: not exactly lost,
not exactly knowing where you are, but full of the importance of being
elsewhere, speeding toward.
And so you drive on, grateful for
the dashboard, steering wheel in your hands, strings of mileposts, tiny
reflectors, what’s left of the white lines, rarities the more traveled,
rained on.
Smoke, fog, smudge of light on the
horizon: The City, allegory-big. You on the way, bridge-buzzed, highway-wired,
everything within reach, toward the light, the place where "symbol is
the thing itself."
An
Arrogance of Windows
Jay Chollick
Despite the knotted rising
of the slopes, up to their peaks
they seem to me, these Catskills,
the emphatic stone Taconic,
to shrivel, sink into their dwarf
beginnings
or fade; the Adirondacks fade.
And cities too, the feeble
minor neighborhood Poughkeepsie--blah,
and Utica, and that Kodak town,
the huddled orchards, they all seem
pallid now;
but just to me, for I am Southeast
to my
haughty city tip—I’m the
New York!
And all else—inconsequential meandering
Niagara-nothing rest of it—I blow
away.
I am an arrogance of windows: NYC.
I measure worth by length of shadow.
I breathe bellowing, airshaft of
the lung.
Sky-scribbled, I am misery and predator,
a homeless box. I’m easy breezy
wonderful, I
am a Jew—third finger up!
And Albany, that one’s for you.
Inventing
Nations
D. Nurkse
My grandmother’s flesh has grown
luminous,
cloudy behind her nylon housecoat.
Since her treatments, she can keep
down
only jello, sherry, and whipped
cream.
She stays up all night watching
old movies:
sometimes she loses her temper,
turns off the sound,
and hexes the characters in a language
no one in this city has heard of:
by day
she stares at the Narrows framed
in her window.
She can no longer identify the flags
of freighters
and asks me to, but strain as I
may
my vision blurs, and she insists,
so I wind up
inventing nations: Liguria, Phoenicia,
Babylonia . . . and she nods. On
her wall
Kennedy faces Truman but there’s
no picture
of the child dead of consumption
or the child dead of hunger
or the child who was my father
who succeeded, whose heart failed:
all there is from that world is
a locket
showing the infant Mozart playing
silence
on a tiny clavichord, behind cracked
glass.
(Prior publ. Voices over Water
(Four Way Books), a collection by the author.)
i
see them, i don’t see them
Angelo Verga
i don’t see them, the bearded men
the men who sit, knees tucked in
sneakers on wet midtown street
i don’t see them, waiting
to be fed, hundreds of them
many black, some whites
most young and thin,
a few gray women
i don’t see them
waiting for the bread
the meat, the lettuce,
mustard tomato
at 7 a.m., the breakfast meal
the Franciscan Friars give them
the giant coffee urn at the other
end
where they squat and drink and eat
or hide the napkin-covered treasure
for later. i don’t see them
the crusty-skinned, the matted-haired.
i see the smooth-legged, no split-ends
women on their way to work
rushing across the street. i see
them.
they don’t smell, they don’t spit.
i pray to them:
i beg for what i need.
(Prior publ. The Six O'Clock News
(Wind Publications), a collection by the author.)
A
Viewer's Guide to Hell
by Marc Desmond
(1945 - February 2001)
first canto
we will begin right
here at the designated end
of cloning the release
of complex molecules in-
to the worn-out atmosphere
that claws its way into the heart
of our cravings
i would go to hell
for you but i am in hell
already steeped in the blood
of stones drinking
the odor of grape leaves on the
breath
of those whose only sin is not
to be connected to be excluded
from the best clubs they fake unconcern
until change raises itself
from the mat and hiccups its last
defiance at a creamcheese universe
i wander through the tiers of evil
acts trailing after your feet
and powdering your head so much
now depends on what we breathe
so much of what we see how fast
we talk whether we will go
to prison for not putting stickers
on
the eyes of addicts to convince
the unashamed
that we are all sane here that nobody
who hurt us really matters any more
i sink into the company
of people who believe that
unemployment creates jobs and
that superman wears baggy tights
and a cape that flows down his chest
and into his legendary crotch you
are carried
past me by
drug-addled waitresses your thighs
are dusted
with silver and yet you know everything
and here the gregorian boys roll
dice for your fate by the light
of
the dancing goddess flat-paneled
on-
to the inside of the left rear annex
of your new expanded soul
cementing your identity in a parade
of staggered neural pathways
the wind is moved to sing
antic wordless tunes all around
me
as colors take shape and the years
taunt their progenitors with arch
references
to the fact that once it was just
like this
only better
that is my personal hell
and i bail out on it for a night
and a night swimming in clouds
while traces are laid on faces and
swell voices
swell to the firmament and this
is it boy
here at the dead end of time i will
find
out where i fit by measuring myself
against measurements and firmaments
and the one whose name may not be
alluded to even the consonants
the holiest of holies the mask of
death
on the velvet skin of life courted
by
the messengers of those who hide
their scowling faces like vampires
behind a breach in the laws of nature
and envy those who are merely
and silently
dead
second canto
there is an awful precision to the
lives of
the dead to the least of their movements
they are always and heedlessly dead
writhing at the foot of hades’ throne
waiting to be relieved by the next
rotation of
adaptable sin in a changing world
perfection is a threat it stands
solid
and reflects all movement
toward convenience as the brutal
fraud
it is perfection
must be engorged with passion seduced
into dragging out its old dance-
floor moves and flashing
its naked belly at the predators
who bait their thorns with wisdom
and yet perfection will mire you
in hell
only passion will bring you out
again
there are password places
here circles beyond circles
that only virgil and the cleaners
know there
i will see you glowing silver in
the glare
of dead eyes witnessing the death
of discipline and the malleability
of love
here you will writhe on naked ground
while your legend pushes
on ahead of you and leaves
you closeted with the muse
alone
among multitudes
third canto
some of these places are ordinary
places where every mouth and
every cunt is filled with ashes
blocking the customs that once passed
on happiness from generation to
regeneration in a rarefied party
atmosphere choking on a hummock
and going down
down
down past countless identical phrases
masquerading as here
and now i am suspended
greedy for form passionate
for meaning for all the things
i left behind when i followed you
to the nether regions of worship
staring and sighing at the merest
happiness i never felt
they are always pretending here
that it is eternity stretched out
over a framework
of song but i know that eternity
is the recollection of your eyes
all over mine of bodies caressing
like hands it is the path you tread
from the grave to my heart and
relentlessly back again blinding
me
to happiness in no time at all
you rip out of me the shuddering
admission that yes i mind not
being touched by you yes i mind
being a coward yes i envy my nostrils
the lingering scent of you i envy
my fingertips those last flecks
of silver and kohl i envy my own
memory
hell is knowing your sadness
hell is my faithless eyes my hands
of smoothest glass
hell is everywhere you are not
epilogue: the death of orpheus
time is the hardest labor of all
lifting each second into place
while i remember the simple dance
of skin on skin the catch in your
voice
tangled with mine the lightness
i never felt
the love you planted in shade your
spiderweb
palm lace kissing lace the touch
of faded petals rustling
for a long time now everything
has seemed normal the air is warm
and gelid a globe of burning gas
crawls
across the image of a sky projected
by our desire for simplicity walls
ripple
and drool acid art becomes weary
and repetitive
just like home
i have spent a piece of silver
for each year since i left you behind
and
now the age of silver is almost
gone gold
howls past me into your dead ears
and i receive
a blessing in many colors even as
i think
claws mark my road they involve
me
in hue and texture they tear
the shroud so i can see time from
the bottom up they carve me into
instances of being and i am everywhere
like the quantum stones that protect
me
from gravity until i look down
and there you are
gone
forever
As
You Like It
by Marc Desmond
72% of the people in our focus
groups thought this would be a good
first line for a poem
satires on commercialism
polled very well in the shabbier
areas of our major cities
through extensive field
testing and much heartbreak,
i finally came to the
realization that 76% of slam
audiences and a full 89%
of slam judges react positively
to dramatic personal narrative
frequent references to my hot
throbbing cock burying itself
thirstily in the hot juicy cunt
of some hot naked barely
pubescent huge-breasted female
poet attracts male poetry consumers
in the highly desirable
18- to 34-year-old demographic
the imperialist running dogs
who conducted my research have
informed me that the inclusion
of marxist rhetoric in my poetry
will increase sales by more than
a third among college-educated readers
the attention span of poetry
audiences in the mtv generation
has
declined by 47% over the past ten
years so this will be the next-
to-the-last stanza of my poem
thank you for listening my
chapbook is on sale
in the lobby a coupon for
a free frappuccino at starbucks
comes with every purchase
(A New York poet and
member of The Rogue Scholars troupe, Marc Desmond died suddenly in February,
2001. Memorial readings for him were held on February 17 at the 37th Street
Theatre and on February 25 at ABC-NoRio. A permanent memorial has been
created featuring this poem on mp3 on http://www.poetz.com/marcdesmond.)
Returning from Hell's
Kitchen
Ravi Shankar
Now that the gargoyles
have oxidized,
Skyscraper stalks
sprout lenticular panes.
Another rush-hour
overpowers the hush
Or such ambient din
as passes for silence
In the self-proclaimed
center of the world.
Underground, trains
groan into stations
To be filled with
eyes that never marry,
Toothless mouths that
occasionally break
Into songs about joy
in the face of loss,
The rhythm section
a few coins in a cup,
The rest all pleats
and loosened ties,
Various gears unscrewed
from labor's
Leviathan watch. Simple
not to muse
When in transit: people
board, disembark,
And instantly, the
space they leave is filled.
(Ravi Shankar is the editor of Drunken
Boat,
www.drunkenboat.com)
Thunder Young
Martin Galvin
I hear a growly rumble, an old uncle from Jersey,
separated by a river and a couple neighborhoods
from where I'm at, not the at the kids have taught
me, where I'm absolutely not, but the at where I'm.
Lucky, I think, to sit under a roof when thunder comes
Rolling across the corn and soybean, announcing
With a clapped hand its arrival, announcing as the Baptist
It heralds a better, richer caller coming on.
Luckier still to sit in a bar where music's made
off Broadway, child to the spikes of lightning
stalking the Hudson, and let the near thunder utter
its jazz talk about where it is and what it is that matters,
its hat pulled down around both ears, hands pocketed
in pants drooped and holey, ready to seed the dark.
That's the kind of thunder I can hanker after
When it drops in, the kind I'm sad to say is gone
When its bully brother the rain lets loose.
From the other coast, my daughter writes she misses
the thunder, its ways of remembering who she was,
remembering how we all were, young as toadstools.
(Martin Galvin's poems have appeared in Poetry, Orion, Painted Bride Quarterly, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Christian Science Monitor, and Best American Poetry 1997. Bogg Publications recently released his chapbook, Appetites. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.)
The Super's Son
Mervyn Taylor
The super's son's all grown up.
Now he sports the mannish beard,
Curses lightly under his breath,
Gives me surly looks since
His old man and I had that run-in.
In the tiny space between the garbage cans
And the back of the building,
He bounces the ball hard. On
Tuesday nights he helps his father,
The black plastic bags tied and heavy,
Slung to the sidewalk out front
With an attitude, the way men
Who do hard work make us others
Get out of the way.
(Mervyn Taylor, a native of Trinidad, West Indies, is the author of two volumes of poetry, An Island of His Own (Junction Press, 1992) and The Goat (Junction Press, 1999). He is an instructor in the Writing Program at the New School for Social Research Eugene Lang College in Manhattan and also teaches writing and journalism at the High School for Enterprise, Business and Technology in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A former New York Foundation for the Arts award winner, Mr. Taylor's poems are included in the anthologies, Bum Rush the Page, Giant Talk, and Rock Against the Wind. Journals where his work has appeared include Antillea, the Harlem Arts Journal, Pivot, St. Ann's Review, Steppingstones, and Sulfur. Mr. Taylor recently read his work on the air for Pacifica Radio. Other recent appearances include: the Brooklyn Spring Poetry Fair sponsored by the Brooklyn Borough President; the Brooklyn Poet's Day Reading at Brooklyn College; and Lincoln Center Outdoors. He is at work on a new manuscript, tentatively titled, The Careening Poui.)
Brooklyn's First Tunnel, 1844-1860
Alyssa A. Lappen
The day the last brick was laid over my mouth,
My rails and ties pulled like old teeth, the furrows
In my floor left like hollowed gums, I was safe
Inside this vaulted peace. The steam trains long
Gone, took with them my guttural roar, crowds
Of parasoled ladies, top hatted gawkers and dull
Comments on my short length or arched roof—
My youth and all the chance I had for greatness.
What stole my voice was the newer breed, who
Did not like the ferry from Manhattan. The rails
Were nice to ride—six hours over wild moraine
Glaciers had deposited, where foxes stalked
Pheasants, egrets flew. But then came a day-long
Sail to Boston from Long Island over open sea,
Bit by foggy breath of seasons. Besides, Robber
Barons, with titles to Connecticut's shore, thought
Better to line their silk pouches with more Gold: No
Mercury yet lived asleep in stone, stars had not yet
Shown indoors. Stations grew across East River in another
Wild of woods and farms beyond that town. I was quieted
before my voice was young, bankrupted. I am hidden, safe.
Wanda R.I.P.
Erin A. Dickerson
At the age of six, I invented an imaginary friend. For several years, my father had tried to convince me that a pig, Evangeline, and a dog, Rover, lived in the hallway of our tenement building. They were the pets, he insisted, of a girl named "Guzza Magoo," who lived by the garbage bins on the third-floor landing. Sometimes, he would pretend that the pig or dog was under our kitchen table. I would roll my eyes and admonish him with a chiding "Daddy!" Eventually, to outdo him, I invented my own imaginary playmate, but mine was defective. I changed her name from Hortensia to Gertrude to Wanda. Nothing seemed right. I tried holding conversations with her, but she was the boring, silent type. Finally I gave up and didn't care if people sat on her or talked loudly while she was sleeping. Anyway, I never understood the purpose of imaginary friends, because my real world was so fascinating. It still is, even now that I'm seventeen, because I live on Bleecker St.—a street scored through the heart of Greenwich Village.
"New York, you rock!" some guy outside our apartment bellows at 1:14 a.m. In the room where James Agee wrote The African Queen and where (my dad says) I saw his ghost as a baby, I crawl out of bed and go over to the window. From five flights up, I supervise the night. There's the screamer. He has a scruffy beard, a baseball cap and a beer can. He's just another crazy, making my city's music.
On the street, cabbies honk excessively trying to get to the Peculiar Pub—cabbies like the one who charged my mom five dollars to go three blocks when she first came to the city. I've grown up falling asleep to the symphony of carousing people and sirens and horns. One neighborhood car even plays The Godfather theme on its horn.
There's the old man across the street, staring down, too. With his bulldog face, he stares out day and night. I wonder if he has watched me growing up. There's Mr. Richard, the homeless man who pets my real dog and tells him, "Lucky, you da coolest dog in town. You just so cool." And there's the pole that I walked into on my first date. (I turned bright red and grew a golfball on my forehead.) There go the local kids, waltzing into Pizza Box. And there's the neighborhood drunk, standing in front of my friend's apartment, cackling to himself. He gives off a cacophony of smells.
I know every regular on Bleecker St.: the Asian men who own the drugstore, the Russian lady in the jewelry shop, the Black men who stand in front of A Taste of India restaurant singing oldies. These are the characters who take the place of invented playmates and fuel my imagination.
From my fifth-floor window, I conduct Bleecker St.
(Erin A. Dickerson is a senior at the Bronx High School of Science.)
Fulton Street, 3:00 a.m.
Anthony Bernini
Where Fulton Street slips into the river
below the bottom of the highway
there is some life to all those fish
suspended out of water in a maelstrom
market whorling in the early dark
bristling with grappling hooks and barrels.
Wide-eyed fish stare from handtrucks
clanging off the curbs, flinging
everywhere the river from steel wheels.
The fish are heralds of a history
beckoning from their tumultuous grave
to men long gone who stood in wool caps
waiting for work with rag-wrapped hands,
to the holds of unmarked freights
where chosen ones were lowered on ropes
to bring the world up in bunches and bags,
green bananas with their immigrant tarantulas,
mists and mountains ripened into black beans.
In the light of day when the work is done
men cannot quite hose away that smell
that keeps alive the dying sense,
carrying yesterday straight to the brain,
casting images behind the eyes.
(Distant Kinships, A. Bernini's first book, published by ADP Press,
Albany, NY, in 2002 and reviewed in the Jan '03 issue.)
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