Read Me

Found a poem,left by a officeron the sidewalkof an unnoticeable building.Like the City’s violation checkerstuck a vivid ticketin your windshield,but for passerby.What did the poet say?We are made of carbon,all in our current formsby chance.By creation.By conspiring.

In Our Taxi

In our taxi
we take a shortcut
through 30th St.,
which I wouldn’t walk.

Which doesn’t seem
to end but carry on
with warehouses,
indefinitely.

And with the broken
streetlight disappearing
address numbers,
all graffiti, upturned
trash or shopping carts,
shattered shadows
into hulking ones…

We were in Detroit
or Los Angeles, maybe
Baltimore.

I think it is the
longest street
I’ve ever seen.

The Good, The Hard, The Daily

I sit down to write a poem

and find nothing waiting

to be voiced. There is

the liquid purple sunrise

that lingers for me to wake

now that it is fall. And there are

the two sleeping babies

I have just left, one chattering

into the bars of her crib.

There is the tight flutter

in my chest I can’t name.

But all these things are

already being appreciated.

There is a couple waiting

at the crosswalk, who turn

one after the other to point

at the brilliance of the new day.

The faces of the skyscrapers

are glowing gold, for everyone,

even the ones who might prefer to be

heading the other way, home.

We all know the pattern.