In a New York State of Mind
1.
From the Airport
the A to L to G-Graham
a living city sacked by vandals
Not Visigoth circa 5th century
but Dondi and his bastard children.
city graffiti to walls like leaves to trees
So close to Chuck Close’s Kate
no thing escapes the artists’ notice
Corners of canvases and store front glass
world is a well lit and traveled gallery
Fat Cap, Skinny cap, NY thins.
Pardon us officer for our sins.
Montana, Red Devil, Belton, Krylon
Black tip, Blue to the breaka breaka dawn.
2.
If the decent into JFK is like witnessing eternity, bookend to bookend
than the air-shuttle is your funeral and Subway your grave
three years from your death
when all those
who knew you
have moved on down the line
Your stop at 3rd is nigh
and up a flight of dingy stairs your resurrection
revelation to your mother’s childish lie
Over nineteen million people can’t all be special.
over 20 million everyday pilgrims on pilgrimages
you are sand in a sea of shifting sand
not ghost, echo of specter or Hades’ shade
for those had visage and name to remember
you are anonymity, distant kin of curb-side bubble gum
the 6 billion other earth-wide
(but that was two weeks ago mother besides)
and none whom care for you but
the one
who waits
to take your seat on the train
your cab fare on the street
or walks in your shadow waiting to step hurriedly passed your dusty bones
3.
Concrete is God bound, indivisible and hard.
the brick does not determine its purpose/use
the architect does
these go to a skyscraper, those a tenement,
this one goes through the ocean blue glass of a Mercerize Bends/ Crash!
Scattering fingers of starry confetti to the asphalt sky
this is the City of the infinite
and your voice in-wombed, lapped up by the stones, waffled between car horns
your voice that thing which you, confident, speak of love and hate and forever and tomorrow
is unheard.
you are krill-
it the Atlantic
Hush! Horse men approach over pastoral lands
Brown Brick wants to tell you something about the architect plans.
a song unwritten, merely suggested by the blueprint’s lines and outlines
There was once a bird of violet plumes in Rome on the eve of Alaric’s third return
and while it lived, it spoke and whistled for his master’s wife’s pleasure
mimicked expression, mouthed the sound of word, and when it died, its existence went unrecorded, but an omission unnoticed
by the chronicler’s pen
you share the same non-fate
So why not write on walls.
