SELECTED POEMS
I have been writing some poems on and off since I moved to New York and I’m working on a compilation that will be a part of a creative book about my experiences here.
Here are some selected poems:
11111 (One Day Street)
The buildings are tall on purpose – to make you feel small.
You are small.
The express elevator is broken.
See: Alice in Wonderland.
Make sure your head doesn’t hit the sky – they don’t call ‘em skyscrapers for nothing.
Like an abused child going back to his mother saying “it’s ok,
I know you love me too”…right?
The buildings are tall on purpose.
The stairs, a furious philandering flight.
I dreamed of bigger buildings:
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mile High
Made of wood, stacked side by side.
Drawing rooms to draw more drawing rooms
With chandeliers, mirrors, my own Versailles -
A vanity, a dressing room, a California King,
A breeze at midnight, a soothing birds’ sing,
Waking up from silky Xanax coated dreams,
Leather ottomans, kitty kats drinking angels’ milk,
Like winter’s first snow kissing the nape of a light post,
Flickering glazes, the disco gazes, the street mazes,
Dipping my feet in the water, left and right, walking
Right foot left foot up to a penthouse bar, a taxi car, not going too far, further up on the right hand side, just past the deli, swipe pull turn, open the door to the big building, turn the TV on, hard to get to sleep tonight – there’s a lot of no noise in this big building, it’s hard to listen to Baker’s Valentine when time is on my mind and taking all my time to find the answer to an abstract question.
I said, “Watch your head!” Baboons build tall empty buildings that look like palaces and Gotham cathedrals, Georgian townhouses, Greek churches, Romanesque Cooperatives, Overwrought derivatives, the man on the street with a will to live.
The door is over there and the windows are discreet.
My building is TALL on purpose – I live on “one day” street.
12011 (Be good this time)
Pack, wrap, put it away.
Two years, three months and some change,
Changing the pace in the island race.
New chapter: I am the artist.
They say time will only tell.
No, not just with a flick of the wrist,
Forming a fist, did you get the gist?
I think it’s more like a church bell
Alert, but soft and full of charm
Be good this time and set the alarm.
I want to be the beach where the tall grass sways
In unison with the parallel waves and rocks
with rounded edges in tide pools filled with gold.
More to come! XO N