Laughing Poem for New York

Sept. 6th, 2008 / 6:30 AM / Manhattan

And all I can do is laugh, the great laugh of the city, that incredulous laugh of remorseful joy, the laugh of walking down 6th Avenue at dawn knowing that it's another story, and our pain and pleasure is only footnote to the footsteps on, one by one down on the pavement of the city, each hour one by one down on that cruel clock of the city, cold dream-engine and fear-engine, fastidiously creaking out its existence like any of us, unable ever to pause or sing its praise for us, drawn down to the subways and down to the towers and fortresses, able neither to speak nor hold its peace between us.

All I can do is regret that city and its million stories, or sit down barefoot on the ground and cover all its stories with the soil, garbage black and true and steaming with the taint of death, and gather up the flowers and the laughter from that one redeeming truth of lovers and the city: that time reduces everything to dust and no time is dependent on the "why" of life or love—just please remember that the city gathers not the stones of shame but rather begs of you to laugh and know that death waits gently for us all, and gently praises both the city and its shame—and creaking walks the shadows of its streets, the whirlwind play of nights that daily prey upon us and the way we ply by trying not to stop it—

Sonnet for N.

The heart beats,
the yellow flowers grow,
the growing burden on the sky
wages dark on the blueness there,

the wandering bleats
of trumpets slow
in distant fields lie
calm in a silence there,

and the crow entreats
the dusky haze of twilight, low
on the horizon, to die
now like the light upon your hair,

black as the vault of sky,
naked as the sky laid bare.

--Brooklyn, 2008