New York City Scenes

The Camera's Eye/The Poet's Eye

Manhattan

Sunlight bounces off the windows
of oncoming cars. I want to scream
driving to work, with a scratch of lipstick,
clutching my cold cash heart.
Behind me the total sum of existence;
a half-fed baby, yesterday’s dishes,
a nanny glued to daytime soaps.
This heat wave. Time is unrelenting;
time is broken by the folding of prams
in shopping malls, where I dream
of flying to Barbados. I’ve learnt
to add, subtract and multiply ingredients
they never taught in home economics.
Later, a slip of Prozac, and the chaos of dusk.
I face Manhattan with that sinking feeling,
another fall approaching.
My flabby rear cushioned,
my navel winking.

Michelle Cahill

I am alone here in New York, no longer a we.
Elizabeth Hardwick

Jazzonia
Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.

Langston Hughes

Prez
That ain't tip-toe-ing
Naw
Jawin' before
Your gig guts have to be attuned
Oiled, if you will,
Gin, bourbon, scotch,
an Up and Down--
Prez?
Ding Dong?
Hangin'
in a past long gone
in a world long gone
in your ears, yeah,
but still long gone,
the echoing of that long gone
in your ears
Aligning with your memories
Bringin' up the testimonies,
and you hear them--
"Lady Be Good"--
and you start to
Swing
You swing
Can you swing?
Lady, you can swing,
and, girl, you can swing,
and, girl, you can
Put your swing
in my backyard
Any day,
Lady Day,
and that stream's
Still running
Under everything:
Remembering
Crescendo
Rhythm-ings
Blues upon blues
Upon waves
and pomps
and processes
and brushing off the suits
and splashin' on the floo-floo
and the sun's gone for
Another night and day
and the sun's
Gone for another knight
and the sun's always gonna go
Anyway, so
Ding Dong?

Little Selmer Blower

1
MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering,
On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence.

2
After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence;
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality.

The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues;
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence;
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month,
any part of the direct life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects
him or her onward afterward through the
 indirect life-time.

3
The indirect is just as much as the direct,
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.

Not one word or deed—not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,
putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder,
seduction, prostitution, but has
 results beyond death, as really as before death.

WALT WHITMAN

All photographs on this post, with the exception of the vintage photo of Prez standing up on a Harlem sidewalk, were by thegrowlingwolf

The Daily Growler