Insomnia

Turning in a murky, predawn soup Tossing like a crazy salad

Sunday

Dog walk though a tulip filled Park
Deep red, tart, Cherry Stomp from the Farmers Market
Green Spring shoes spotted at the Flea
A holy marzipan Easter Lamb from Veniero’s
Body Butter from a lab-coated sales girl at Kiehls, made with shea
Laura and Billie
Iggy on a tee
Your striped Shirt from Fabulous Fanny’s
A walk home to my shaggy ottoman and settee
I’m glad you spent this Sunday with me.

It's All True

I want you
She did too
Now she wants he
And he wants me
So, what to do?
And who gets who?

What Happens to Unsold Roses?

At night in every corner store, bodega and flower mart
Dusky men pull the outer petals off roses
making blowsy, spent blooms
look like fresh, young rosebuds
It’s the biggest scam in New York.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.
Buckets overflowed with lavish bouquets
Red, red roses, baby’s breath, green filler, ribbons
for a gesture of the heart.

But what happens to the unsold roses?
Like beauties not chosen at a dance
the promise of love and romance in the City
unrealized by 4am.

I long to gently free them from their rubber bands
Take heaps of their softly drooping petals
and spread them on the gritty sidewalks
shaping a giant crimson carpet leading to you.

Never Trust A Cigarette Smoker

A tobacco fiend has a heart like a blackened ashtray
They breathe in poison and spew it back out on you
When the smokescreen clears
See empty holes where character should be
View their cancered mind and choke on their stink smell
Taste the utter bitterness of their mouths
and then watch as they stamp you out
as casually as a butt on the sidewalk.

Bite

I'd like your salty flesh between my teeth
I promise not to break the skin
A tongue tracing the nape of your neck
And that's where we'll begin....

Remember?

There's only one record store left on St. Mark's Place
They used to be up and down the street
I remember when the St. Mark's Bookstore was ON St. Mark's Place
And Dojo's was the place to eat.

Hope

morning in the city park today
through the damp earth
new green shoots did part
will become tulips or daffodils maybe
their hopeful promise of Spring is
a balm to my chapped Winter heart

Miss You

Staring into a bowl of purple borscht at the counter on 2nd Avenue, thinking of you....

Sidewalk Solo

I night walk down a cold stretch of 9th Avenue from frozen Hell's Kitchen to windy Chelsea, each measured, leather-soled footstep saying "I am", "I am", "I am."

Benediction

Two gaunt homeless men standing in a a bus shelter, one tenderly smoothing the other's long hair with his fingers, their faces like Apostles.