Turnstile

This city in the palm of our hands like a wet metro card

Life and death depending on how far it can get us

And this damned machine won’t take it because it is flawed,

The remains of it taken up from the gutter, with trips

Still clinging to it, but beyond redemption or claim,

And the expiration date clicking off too fast to allow

This ticket to fortune to dry, we never actually knowing

If it contains anything of value or a trip to any place

At all, after a decade from that first time selling all

We have to sell, to this, no way to climb out so we

Cling to this thing we have found, stained with the sweat

Of others who earned this ride but somehow lost it

On their way for us to find, their sweat leaving us to sweat

Over whether or not we can redeem it when it has

Been so misused, this street, this city, this vulgar landscape

We must cross to get from where we were to where we are
going, uncertain just who it is that paid the fare, as long

As someone has, and doubtful, when we stick this card

In the turnstile whether we can get through to the other side at all.

Where are the gifts?

“It’s warm in here,” they say and sigh

And tumble into chairs that slide

There is dust here, too, rising from thick arms

Of the thick-armed arm chairs,

“Tell me,” they say, “why you bear no gifts,”

On this of all days when gifts must be given

They stair under the tree at all the angel hair

And shake their heads and ask what’s fair.

“I keep my gift until night,” I say,

“When all good kids are tucked away.

“You know all that clap trap about

“Santa and his merry route.”

“No,” they say staring at my lack of sleigh

And where stocking at the mantel sway,

And wonder if they’d been good

And if I bear coal under my hood

“And those?” they ask, “are from Santa, too?”

As they wonder what it is they’ll do,

When they can’t get gifts they fought to find,

Will Christmas then seem a waste of time?

Out in the cold for slow long my toes

Are as numb as is my nose

And I watch their thick arms rise to go

Shaking the world I used to know

And yet so desperate to get their gold

They lug along their sacks of coal

Port Authority

The owls of the city bleat

This late night leading to dawn

Wide eyes wider than mine

As I walk down this lonely road,

Like stop lights going on

And off, full of yellows

And greens, saying caution

Then go, only to blink

Caution again as I wait

For the red to come

And the old passion to race

In my head and heart

Time cannot erase completely

Like the old lessons on the nun’s

Blackboard blurred and written

Over but always there,

and I am a complete confusion

as to which I should read

the new or old,

pausing to sit on a park bench

in this dark of night,

in this city of lights

on this dark street behind

the blinding street

where the buses huff and puff

and wait to return through the

tunnel I must always pass through,

my thoughts not of the painted

ladies the prowl this dark sidewalk

but of the hundreds of times

maybe thousands I have passed

through this place on my way

to find some place else,

and that one time, when I could

not find any trace of you,

and sat down on the curb

to stare the owl-like lights

that blinked inside and outside

of me, telling me to go, but not go,

to hurry, but slow down,

to find that one bus that will

take me to where I need to go

but do not know where it is,

unable to buy the right ticket

unable to rush ahead between

the blinks of lights

and how in those days I wandered

the echoing halls of this place

to find the right gate to the right place

and the ticket that might lead

me to paradise, and how

after all these years,

I still end up here, sitting on this curb,

Staring at the blinking lights

Telling me to go, but not go.

Wet leaves

Wet leaves

Clutch the ground

Like desperate hands

Fingers clutching

The rain-soaked earth

As I step among them,

This walk through

The chill air

Driven by the same

Urgency that they

Must feel on the edge

Of something

They do not understand,

This end of life cycle

We all share

Aching to know

If there will be a new green

After the heavy snows go

And will what we love

And lost in this life

Linger into the next

For our fingers to grasp again

To draw up to our heart

To feel its beating against

The beating that still beats

Inside of us,

Each step I take this autumn

Always filled with the hope

That it will all start again

And all I need do is wait

For the cold to pass,

And in this, I let the rain

Dribble down over and inside of me

Cleansing me

When the rain comes

When the rain comes

My bone hurt for want of wet

The ache for the change

The want of wet

After such a time of draught

The changing leaves

Strewn across every step I take

Stuck to the ground to leave

Their imprint when I pull

Up one by its stem

When the rain comes

I feel it drip inside me

Even as it wets my brow

Not tears of sorrow

But tears of joy

As this season eases

Into the next and this

A baptism for a new age

With me traveling

Through time

Each changing season

Leaving its ring inside me

The way it always does

The trees from which

The leaves fall