Not feeling groovy on the Q32 today.

Traffic towards Queensboro sprawled, crawling for dear life,

inching, waiting for many minutes at this time.

Not looking for fun, boys.

This girl’s needs to go to work now,

but traffic’s not letting us move—-

I wonder if the ‘60s were really living easy;

the kids back then are now pushing their mid-sixties

and they roll their eyes, remembering their own high hopes

of peaceful, easy living

now dashed upon the rocks below by current history.

Paul and Art, today I’m not feeling groovy—-

I need to go to work now

in spite of this slowdown,

I need to make this moment last.

People are not made without pain.
We trade our personal safety for fame
and a bit of immortality.

Even willow trees,
shaped like green spliced angels,
the holy sailx feathered scepters,
won’t weep forever.

And the tender, furry caktins
young, silvered and sweet,
won’t stay sweet forever—

When I was still sweet and young,
I felt the thorns deeply. I wanted
all the pain to stop, so I could
grow up to be famous.

I want happiness, and comfort,
and love, along with inspiration,
the rain along with the sun,
the tender fuzzy tendrils
along with the silent, swaying tree.

Who should beware the Ides of March?

Politicians, people who lie, betray, embezzle, who did wrong, and knew they did wrong,
they should wise up and stop their callous actions,
before more blood is shed,
before another madman shoots up a school or public place,
before ignorance becomes the norm,
before social media shares and dissects all,
before it’s too late to do the right thing.

How would you like to be remembered?
By your vile acts against humanity,
by a second Shakespeare,
who would turn your torrid tale into literature, a play, a news story?

Settle your affairs and your debts,
and tell the truth.
It’s the right thing to do.

Was Stephen Hawking a poet?
Yes, he wrote of the cosmos as if it was a beloved, mysterious lover.

Black holes, quantum mechanics, a brief history of Time,
he was known for these things, not just for his ailments,
his brain was a complete wondrous thing, to be brilliant
in the most progressive and transgressive of times.

Poetic that he died on Pi Day,
the most mystical of all-known numbers, constantly evolving & growing,
drifting into space, forever changing and computing—
perhaps we will eventually find a bit of Hawking’s essence
floating forever in the stars, constantly computing and evolving,
never standing still—

Quinn tastes like diesel in Queens,
the worst SnoCone flavor.

Quick-slow-slow-quick-slow-slow
we tread through slippery slush
and I wonder how many kids came upon it with their feet,
the marks were still fresh upon the grey mush.

Wind howled with the oncoming traffic,
umbrellas died in the great guffs,
Quinn’s snow covered us without remorse,
her flakes were wet and fat.

By 7th Ave. my coat was still soaked.
Why were the other coats still bone-dry?

If I still worked in Manhattan,
it would have been manageable;
Quinn’s flakes are fine & sedate
in Columbus Circle.

Untethered ballerinas in Queens Plaza cross over towards Sunnyside Yard,
tiptoeing as if they were still children, and grounded acrobats,
heavy from endless aerials, try to avoid the live wire on the bridge,
barely missing the train as it flies over their heads.

The rest of the ones, born grounded,
cross over the Queensboro Bridge safely on buses and in their cars;
they creep slow, along with the traffic, they sonder on, currently unsatisfied,
wishing they could fly and float away, at least, a bit faster
than whatever mood-elevation they’re currently on—

Another lackluster Tuesday, almost electrified
as the commuters slowly gain some needed power as they ride.

Those hundreds of young lambs, not yet thirty, gathered thick upon the opera house,
waiting for Greenwood’s genius—the good-natured Jonny is not just a rocker, but he could orchestrate gorgeous, classical music from mid-1950’s London, and I wonder:
“Did these young lambs ever heard such music before?”

After the live orchestra finished playing the movie,
the lambs went drinking at the biergarten
as I sopped up Ethiopian chicken stew and yellow lentils,
mulling over the themes of the theater
and the spicy flavors of the meat
(I stayed away from the lamb)

Ice dancers do their rhumbas
donning Latin fringe,
gliding their twizzles in 7 second-long rotations,
skating towards first place—

Twilit, almost wearing the soul of evening.

We long to be in the heart of the action,
both the girl & boy move like poetry
as they heat up the ice with their sexy moves.

The ladies, bright as male peacocks,
the men, in black, glittered, skintight deep-V shirts,
both playing the rose and the stem.

Bloody Valentines,
Ash Wednesday’s victims turn to ash.
Another senseless shooting in Florida

17 deaths and counting,
the school kids dodged bullets,
some of them never returning home—
just another senseless shooting in Florida

Why is it so easy
for a 19-year-old to buy an AR-15 rifle?
Do we blame his mental illness or today’s gun laws?
Or Republicans?

Why, God, if you’re still here,
was there
another senseless shooting in Florida?

No one deserves to die like this.