Sleepy City - 2001

well i suppose sometimes only a good night's sleep 
is all that's needed in this world 
I mean if only everything i felt and everyday could be made 
blue and twilite 
by sleep, then what orange brightness would affect me to such an 
inhospitable degree? 
And if my non-senseless right now is created by immediate non-verbal 
communication gratification, then, well... 
satisfied at last by some urban nocturne 
song sung loudly by quiet shadowed birds 
traversing a sullen distance between 
the glass and steel towers on which my 
morning rests 
wind sung breezily between 
alleys of cold tar 
blackened as the birds they reflect

Recent Works - In Progress

Some Recent Projects

                                            Father & Son Reunion

                                 Legalized Flip-Flop Impression #1 

                            Last night I gripped your soft pillow goodbye.
                                 

Instructions #1

                                       Paul Smith - Reworked Bag #1

spring cleaning and a rondo or two.

its time to clean it all out
let go of the surreptitious vaccinations
and align the flooding vitriol with
stories of plight
memorized,
tales from my father
from his mother
back from the old country
where everyone was spitting poverty
spit fucking poor
every single day

dirt in the nails was the measure of purity
working the land
equated to all signs of goodness
no desire beyond what we gave
and what they gave
and what had been forever given

time to clean the floorboards
from the years of mice
defecating
and the skin
hardened and peeling
and reconstituted into breathable particles
only to be regurgitated later
while sleeping the desperate sleep of a nomad
caught in the wrong place
the wrong time.

lastly i confided in the diaries, the journals, the hidden writing books
of shame
where i secreted substances
that stay and lay hidden
atrophying and collecting themselves around each other
like pearls

time to clean
and breathe
or else the presence of the long-dead living
will take over
in the tiny manhattan apartment
fighting with the blank
strange walls

Does Canada exist

She wrote to me
All the way from Toronto
Which is actually farther than Detroit
next to itself.
And when I held her letter, crumpled by flight
I smelled her wet breath on my face
Warm
and slightly stale.

She stopped on the train
On the tracks
she said.
Until she couldn't think beyond the hailstorms and pounding collapse of the rail yards.
Like in Chicago
she said.
Like in new York city when new York city failed to exist.
Like that time in Katz's deli
Blazing through two pastrami sandwiches
toxic mustard staining her cheeks
on the Friday after Thanksgiving
when the tourists packed the streets
reminding her
of August in Rome.

looking back in
she was stunted
in proximity of her ancient similarities
between kafka and isolation
so
she fled
quickly
back to the ice
back to the flooding rains and lichen catelogues
back to the ancient diaspora where she soaked herself
in the
Absence of anything
Absence returned.

I don't date north of 72nd st

or really south of canal, unless its TriBeCa, and only then if I like the cross-streets. And forget about Queens, or Bronx or a large percentage of Brooklyn.
I'm not the only one, although everyone around here creates their limited universe of where they will allow a potential romantic interest to live.
Recently I dated someone within a 10 minute walk. That was great, except now I avoid that hood since the BAD THING happened.
Actually, at this point, that wasn't so recent ago. and the bad thing ended up being a good thing I think. At least it wasn't so bad that I can't walk in the neighborhood now.  Really, I can or should be able to go through the hood again.  Actually, I look forward to meeting up with her.  When I walk through the hood, I imagine seeing her and her little doggie and saying all the niceties and then how are you. maybe we get a cup of coffee for old times  - or maybe she is violently bitter with me - but I try not to imagine that scenario.
Maybe this all is a good reason to expand out my dating universe. Right now I'm seeing someone from Williamsburg.  That's definitely not too far away, but definitely not too close either.  It's a good distance - one I prefer and is easier.  Then again, I would like to date someone from the more southern/brownstone end of brooklyn again - although the people in the neighborhoods are awful and boring and smugly self-satisfied, at least there are plentiful trees and prospect park.