Month: June 2017

Overcast at dinner,
they all continued dancing

out in the yard

where the folk music played

and the totem pole bloomed,

their makeshift crowns blooming.
We forgot to drink tonight;

I would had danced with them.
The rain fell soft and cool;

meatballs with savory sour cream

and lingonberry jam

warmed my palate;

the waffles were too 

textually soft today
I’d flashback to my trip at 22

when I drank vodka with my cousins

in Vaxholm every day;

(I should had got some sex but didn’t);

I missed Midsommar over there,

I was on a ferry to Finland,

I missed the festivities and the hedonistic carryings-on,

my grandparents wanted to see Finland.
I’m here and not 22.

It’s a love-in 

as my NY Jewish friend says,

complete with beautiful 

fiddle players in folk dress.
We walked in Battery Park

seeing the sights:

the Clinton Castle,

the Stained Glass carousel,

the Globe that was on

the Twin Tower
It was pouring 

by the time we reached

the South Ferry station;

we entered the 1

on automated raised steps

in the humid platform.
Sunset still had an hour to go

but we had to go,

and the rain hasn’t stopped yet.

It’s not so unusual
that one-year-old boys

still in strollers in subways,

become so enamored & obsessed

with their own face,

a picture of them, frozen

on their mother’s smartphone, 
Then they see you and hum with delight,

like any young man would. 
Nor is it too strange

for an older young man (20s or so)

to glide on his skateboard

towards Astor Place,

wearing a full-body Spiderman cosplay suit

in over 80-degree weather;

his girl, who walks behind him for support,

wears a black t-shirt with all 

the famous bearded Duck Dynasty stars

smiling pensively, all in a row,

as she walks along with her Spidey,

her long, fizzy, hair flying. 
Outside of Van Leeuwen’s,

another lady, who’s not so happy,

as if she was a fallen amine hero 

defeated at the Battle of the Moon;

her hair straightened and dyed

first platinum then baby girl pink,

her eyes closed by perfectly straight lines,

just horizontal, no curve there, no black pencil,

she walks past, wishing she was invisible—
No one can be invisible or unnoticed here,

even in old age, we all take up space

when the young kids leave home,

milling from E 7th Street

to 1st Ave.,

they are too busy gawking at the

Cooper Union

to stop to have tea with me….
No, it’s not so strange 

to see these things

in the East Village.

This is New York, after all.