Just which New Yorker are you?
Are you the New Yorker who
Started here
Came here
Sent someone here
Became here?
Are you the New Yorker who
Walks the streets
Hibernates in rent control
Fights for the bucks because
you deserve it,
you need it,
you want it.
Are you the New Yorker who
Forms the edges of our quilt
Attaches as a purposeful square
for an issue
for a person
just because.
Are you among these New Yorkers who
Decides who amongst us
lives
dies
lives well, or
lives in hardship?
Creates controls around the many
and confines yourself, or
lives beyond, or
Speaks to us
in a civil tone
in an honest tone
in harshness
in contemptuous longing
in contempt from on high.
Are you the New Yorker who
Runs to the empty seat
Steps in line ahead of me,
Reads by looking at my paper or
Looks by reading my paper?
Am I?
Are you the New Yorker who
Frequents museums,
Watches art movies,
Listens to hard music, or
Avoids the parks?
Are you the New Yorker who
Watches,
Listens,
Observes,
Poses?
Just which New Yorker are you?
Are you the New Yorker I just left,
Angry at the mistreatment of you,
Rather than the treatment you receive
Are you the New Yorker alive in diversity,
or one segregated by the narrow choice of circumstance.
Are you the New Yorker lost in loss,
Spinning wheels invented just for you, by you,
Unable to stop it, living lost, living grey.
Are you the New Yorker who was B
Who is no more, or
Who remains with the Grays,
Who left so clean that smiles form
which raise you a rung, every time your name is sung,
every time you bring, that colorful life to one left, not lost.
Are you that New Yorker who made lore,
Who was a pillar, a cornerstone, a roamer,
Who made the books, historic, neighborhood talk, lost.
Anonymous, contemplated by lore-makers, one of many, one with a story.
Are you one of the New Yorkers, that varied homogeneous group,
We work hard,
We play hard,
We lust often, but love seldom, of others, more of ideas
We are prone to underselling and backstabbing,
We exist hip, yet guilty for our shortcomings
We are your sons and daughters, arrogant enough to want more, we settle on location,
We are varied in that we come from points west and east, north and south, up and down, side to side; yet we are homogeneous in that we come, and we come from you.
Those New Yorkers are a forward bunch.
Those New Yorkers mix and separate,
They cling together, then branch out,
And bear the pain of growth wrecked on themselves,
Self-inflicted treachery they=d choose again and again.
Those New Yorkers fight to kill, love to own and laugh to cope,
But their alive is present, their willingness to test and take
Wins them accolades dreamt of outside the circle,
Scorned at home and paid for with flesh.
This place is a microcosm.
This is you all squished into a small space,
Doing what you=d do, even though you can=t see it,
Because you aren=t squished in, out, sideways and up.
I am the New Yorker happy alone in the crowd,
Overwhelmed by desire to be loved,
Crazy at giving how I can,
Intent on doing it my way, because Frank says that=s cool
I am the New Yorker for
A soup kitchen,
A friendly face in line,
A cutie when you need one,
A valiant enemy breaking rules.
Are you one of those New Yorkers who
Sees Jews on every corner,
Irish boys in the bar,
Italians in the restaurants running
Mexicans crazy, or
Arabs in every cab?
Or are you a New Yorker who sees
No distinction, only a blend,
Where you are all they are and everything they are not.
Do you have the blood of man, or the
Are you a New Yorker who notices,
A New Yorker too well in to see, maybe too far out to care?
On this score, which New Yorker are you?
I am the New Yorker trying to find
Looking at we, a tree
Looking at you, a forest.
I an that New Yorker sitting
Writing in a coffee shop,
Wishing it was on
Thirty years ago.
I am the New Yorker dreaming
About I have been To The Mountain
Wanting desperately to count,
Writing angry adaptations
Penning silly whimsy
Searching my abyss for worth and translation.
I love the thought of,
I relish the execution of,
I adore the completion of
And wait for acceptance
Somehow my lonely words
Joyous amongst themselves,
Content to be grouped as they are
Wish for nothing but a fresh edit.
So it is me, I discover,
Who needs to group my groups with others groups
Or to hear that as a group, they may stand alone.
Am I the New Yorker who came to the masses to be heard?
Am I the New Yorker who makes
By following through on my underlying quest
To have the masses hear and rejoice?
Am I the self-congratulatory
Arrogance of
Calling for bootstraps, equating others to me
In the one world my arrogance breathes,
Instead of equating all worlds and taking place?
Am I a self-hating New Yorker,
A New Yorker of confusion
A New Yorker lost among myself and others,
Longing to be grouped otherwise,
Longing to have others grouped around my light,
Am I
Which New Yorker…
are you all in
half in the bag,
short of change,
long in the tooth.
Do you come equipped
happy with your shortcomings
able in your talents
unaware of you crimes?
Are you one of us
who has fallen apart
who has chosen otherwise
who copes in silence and aroma
who scratches with squelching pain
along the curb
hand thrown out in subway cars
Outside Macy=s
For your kids education
in and out of bars
in and out of hospitals
in and out of jail.
Are you that chick behind the bar who sells me thin cigarettes,
Laughs at the musicians
and never asks what I=m writing.
Are you arrogant beyond your accomplishments,
in a high end store, looking as if I can=t afford to be there
in a mid-end store grasping at my weakness for your comfort
dressed good, better than me, laughing all over not knowing?
Wondering how Some walk about scared of you,
Unaware I love my life,
Ignorant of your ignorance.
Are you a New Yorker steeped in music,
hip, trip, rich, rock, sock, bop
Do you listen to Corrine, Corrina,
Pretzel Logic
Blue Bayou,
All Blues,
Rhapsody In Blue,
Black and Blue?
Do you have Angels From Montgomery,
Do you exalt Mama I=m Still Bleeding?
Are you part of a couple in waiting
waiting for another
waiting for yourself
part of a whole just waiting?
Are you as awed by
honest, aware, sinking toward death,
riding the wave of another=s dream,
unable to break through to the self-awareness disconnected from that imposed,
whether different, external, beautiful or sadistic.
Are you one of those New Yorkers who understand that
or one who cannot comprehend how hard it is on the losers
because the existence of subsistence is so terrible
that to peak around the corner of denial
necessarily means reeking havoc
on yourself, which might be okay,
but also on those you love,
which is unacceptable.
Are you prepared to bear the burden of life,
Despite the outcome of your inaction?
Are you convinced that nothing you do can change what is?
Are you sure that your path is the most helpful to your surroundings,
Or do you understand that all you can do is subsist in the wreckage you have made of your life,
unable to find meaning in anything and knowing why?
Does anything matter outside your saying so?
And if so, what is it you say matters?
And from where does that stem?,
the imposed dream
the contrived fallacies of right, wrong, indifference.
Do modern conceptions of surrealism please you more than Camus,
or does Bukowski break you down to reality
Or at least closer than God.
What moves you toward anything unadulterated;
the prime movers of instinct, religion, politics, art or philosophy;
the sophisticated layer of relationship or denial,
the semantics of agreement, choice, history or your own mind?
Nothing? De jour, viva, momentum?
I am that New Yorker sitting off to one side,
Looking at you, and at me, (and at you looking at me).
I see the heads of New Yorkers at heart,
Bubbles creating the fray,
In our subway,
Knowing that each likely as mine is
Overrunning itself like a steady rolling snowball, (a thread pulled not letting go)
Whose ambition and recognition
Fold into themselves,
Begetting something new.
And somehow each and the other forming bursts, thirsts,
Unquenchable, leading some to be one,
Others to be another and
Remainders to be calm.
Are you that New Yorker who
stops on a dime to make way for another
trips over yourself to make way for others
Are you the one who
sees waiting for another simply causes problems
knows someone must lead
and that your skills
combined with your concern
make it better for all for you to step forward,
Than to let modesty
Make life difficult for all.
Are you that New Yorker who is a rare person
due to your understanding of
the human condition
the race in poverty
the race in riches
the degradation of poverty
the degradation of being rich
who
makes way at the table
For the disfranchised
To sit aside to well heeled
For all to laugh at their goodness
And aid each other=s badness
who stands up despite the inherent conflict
In the aroma and stink of others
In the background and future of others
In the appearance or language of disparate ones
In the commuppings of the many, and of the few
believes that solid nobility, with good blood makes
Us better
This thing what it is
Pride and benevolence
Worthy qualities and
Regular events
or knows that
The will of the many rule
The mind of the many is more often proper
The concerns of each of us
Are precious
Are whimsy
Are yours.
I am the one running to the subway seat, not giving it up since >76, maybe >66.
I am the one who angles in the shoulder for your protection,
even though you do not look where you are going.
I am the one who when we both reach to open the door,
continues and opens it, and grimaces internally at your expectancy,
and arrogance when you pull back and allow me to open it,
as you inevitably do.
I am the New Yorker struggling through
craft and art, marriage and love, friends and emptiness.
I am the New Yorker finding the meaning of self,
the glory of justice, the issues of others and the vulgarity of truth.
I am the New Yorker alive with pride.
I am the one reading things,
To bide my time,
To escape my surroundings,
To gain the power of knowledge,
To look smart.
I am the one asking for money because I must have it,
Because God must have it,
Because many must have it,
just not you and me.
I am the New Yorker alive in every borough in some capacity,
I am the one famed in the
at home with Kings, on occasion on S.I. and a regular in the City.
I am the New Yorker witness to bad politics,
Aware of the people abused by the good people,
Empathetic to the bad people helping the good, and
At work in the system anxious to help, but
Stunted by that around me, both man and thing.
I seek opportunity for us, and favor for you,
not out of saintliness, but from desire to step out..
For all this New Yorker wants is that unattainable through conventional channels,
Despite his conventional life, poetry.
Are you a New Yorker who lives, loves, breathes?
Are you with >em or aginst >em.
Are you one of those New Yorkers who,
On occasion glances out from some perch,
And gazes in awe at the complexities of this huge place,
Who sees chaos ordered,
Who bemoans the shortcomings,
Who hopes for improvement,
Who stops for a moment to
Smell the roses of discontent
Feel the waft of movement
Soak in the wave of progress
Step lightly on the surrounding many
so that order becomes palatable
where chaos exists in penitence
from the sins of ignorance
and the reactions of instinct
around an unknown language,
an impenetrable world
a dream revealed, but
not shared
not felt
not a part of we, but
imposed
unleashed
commanding from some perch
preparing to lurch on you
and me.