stepping onto the E train
where it's so claustrophobic
you might as well cut out your lungs
and die

that would be a bit dramatic
though not as much as the pain
bottled up in the eyes
which want to cry but can't
looking through you not at you
just don't take it personally

walking along 3rd avenue
where cars colonize the street
like it's a newly found kingdom
labeling yourself a New Yorker is a title
not yet earned
since you still check Google Maps sometimes

why bother getting lunch two blocks down
at some unheard of but kinda cool pizza place
when there's a Chipotle right here
and Nintendo World is a few blocks away
and Midtown Comics is right around the corner
there's magic to this

setting your search on Tinder to one mile away
where your options are as endless as your "swipe lefts"
wondering if the next one is the one
it could be, couldn't it?

work ends and you reenter the flux of people
moving so fast it's like they're running away
maybe it's getting Happy Hour drinks
or simply going home

there's less summer every day
only a little bit of sunlight at the end
not much but something to cherish

the ******* about it being hot
will soon be the ******* about it being cold
seeing yourself march through a labyrinth of strangers
going here to there
sometimes with life scaring you
moving into territory without open arms

We fell in time
with the heartbeat of this city
Our eyes blinded
by the bright lights of Times Square

Both of us craving
the sweet summer sun
and the soft suburban stars
of home

But both of us afraid
that we may have found a new home
on the banks of the Hudson river
beneath the red Manhattan moon

Too sweet to slow down
Too quick to ask questions
Too late to build walls
Too soon to take them down

Have you ever
Mixed memories
With what you wished
They could be,
Creating a fictional
Reality
Blended together
Like bitters and whiskey
Vermouth and a cherry,
The Manhattan of your dreams.

Missing the trains, cars, and 3 AM bars. Excitement of the city, and the ache brought a pity. Of wanderlust she had once held in her hands and taken for granted. The adventure she had left there still overflowing in her heart. She had forgotten to appreciate the crowded avenues and beeping buses. The soft, gentle green grass of Central Park. The quiet and timid clink of silver spoons in coffee and tea shops. She missed the old rickety benches full of history and graffiti. The rough paved streets lined up with taxis. The food trucks overflowing with various smells calling your name. Even missing the loud taps of heels as businesswomen rushed passed her, to catch a meeting, a lunch date, a train. She realized what she thought she didn't want, was all she really needed. She thought she needed quiet and she thought she needed serene, but we all begin to realize nothing is what it seems. She knew what she needed to do, and she knew she would do it alone.  She would pack to go far, and get in a car,  going back to New York.... Her real home.

They say the stars rarely come out in New York
But have you been over it, while sitting in an airplane?
New Yawks a galaxy
A galactic city named atrocity
Urging people to find themselves, and learn about themselves
Narcissistic like astrology  

New York rushes me
And brushes me
OFF
New York is so inspiring
But yet
My thoughts are stuck in traffic
And trust me
We have writers on every block

*** holes
That mock

The tapping of your shoe
As you try and try to hush a crowd
Just so that you could get through

We got news anchors talking about how somebody got shot
and sometimes you feel your spirit beggining to rot
Because you can't stop
Imagining bullets
Shooting In every angle
Just dipping into your wakefullness like lullabies
Once in the heart
Twice in the eyes

And three in each ear
It's like **** what you think, feel, see and hear

But It's next year and your still here
In the city where the sound of an ambulance
Can be your alarm
and with a stranger you'll sit arm to arm

So come camp out in Brooklyn under the bridge because your heart will know exactly where those lost ideas now live

Come take the subway and study the map
It'll let you know where to go to get all your inspiration back

And if all fails head to the flea market somewhere sorta creepy downtown
And get yourself a muse
She'll show you around.

On my way from DC to Manhattan, the sky an odd indigo.
Got some donuts from the local bakery, which I'm munching on.
Some girl sits next to me.
After a couple hours she dozed off, and I whisper to her:
"You might be stardust, but you're no nebula."
She can't see the window through my silhouette.
I hate that inky nothing, I hate that
shadow, I hate
that silhouette.

Here is the inimitable Jeff Buckley's poem, "My New Year's Eve Prayer," which he performed live at Sin-é in Manhattan, NYC, in 1996.


"You, my love, are allowed to forget
about the Christmas you just spent stressed out in your parents' house.

You, my love, are allowed to shed the weight
of all the years before,
like bad disco clothes.
Save them for a night of dancing ****** with your lover.

You, my love, are allowed to let yourself drown
every night in bottomless wild and naked symbolic dreams.

You, my love, in sleep can unlock your youth
and your most terrifying magic;
and dreaming is for the courageous.

You, my love, are allowed to grab my guitar
and sing me idiot love songs
if you've lost your ability to speak.
Keep it down to two minutes.

You, my love, are allowed to rot and to die
and to live again,
more alive and incandescent than before.

You, my love, are allowed to beat the **** out of your television,
choke it's thoughts and corrupt its mind.
****! ****! ****! **** the *******
before the song of zombiefied pain
and panic and malaise
and it's narrow right-winged vision
and it's cheap commercial gang ****
becomes the white noise of the world.

Turn about is fair play.

You, my love, are allowed to forgive and love your television.

You, my love, are allowed to speak in kisses
to those around you
and those up in heaven.

You, my love, are allowed to show your babies
how to dance full bodied,
starry eyed, audacious, supernatural and glorified.

You, my love, are allowed to **** in every single endeavor.

You, my love, are allowed to be soaked like a lovers' blanket
in the New York summertime
with the wonder of your own special gift.

You, my love, are allowed to receive praise.

You, my love, are allowed to have time.

You, my love, are allowed to understand.

You, my love, are allowed to love.

Woman, disobey,
when little men believe;

You, my love, are Rebellion."

Truthfully,
you remind of someone I'd know
in my dreams;
a strangers face made recognizable
by lack of initiative, or curiosity.
Impervious to actualization.

Confidence in nightmares;
reflective of shock-waves of Nagasaki,
mutants in our collective DNA,
monsters wading in the gene pool.

Atheists with superstitions.
A viral nihilism befuddled by
religious idioms and anecdotes,
held together loosely by
scientific mysticism
&
hypocritical moral
superiority.

She reminds me that humanity is just,
"everything that mankind is capable of."
Builds complex doomsday devices in his head,
and plots to rule the world.
Meanwhile Manhattan project seeks
to either rule the world
or open it's
throat.

It pains me to write a puff piece
on hometown, love-life, hope/etc.,
yet I can wax lyric lusting for the apocalypse.
In this fashion, I can look into crowds
[sadistically romantic]
and tell them, aspiring to the Manhattan
in our everyday savage grey matter,
"We all have dreams in our hearts."