Empire State Building remains as a tall lad,
colors clad over footprints running small
over this shrunken city, dazed by donuts
free men, decadent doorways, news lurking
In the corners of every billboard;
Still― depending on where your
Frenetic mind travels, between black
And white pages of 1920’s memoirs,
Or poetry stapled to your skirt hem,
You might just be anybody at all
In the cavernous hallway, a city
Some might call hell, but the sweeping lights
Of each New York City night,
Still grumbles low and beautiful―
It still sounds of ideas churning in
The great dreamer’s heads,
(Perhaps between gunshots), a canvas
Is laid, love is made, on gorged
City streets, behind each mini stoplight
And strange aromas from
Square buildings―
Between the bondage
Of each pressing news statement,
Death tolls, habits of nonchalance,
Amidst the lazy circle
Of each teenage bubble popped
In naive mouths,
Perhaps some small wish still remains,
Some magic of the jazz age,
Books spilling open,
Drinks poured, laughter thrown,
Something golden and light
Amidst this darkening strife
Of a mad, mad world―
And maybe the poets were mad too,
(Mad but still right!) of the sun
Spiraling kisses inside the moon,
A dawn shoveled over
A dreadful night,
A light, wistful, aching of some
Sort of nostalgia, to close the light
In the downtown theater,
take a stranger’s hand,
And dance restlessly―
Like fear can not know us
Intimately, as the way we must
Know ourselves―how
Soft and smooth the dim city light
Across a cheek, how small the rain
Jotting puddles between alleyways―
And how big,
The dreamers must sleep,
Tossing in their wild books,
Speaking a strange language,
Of a thousand misfits.
Good night, New York.
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