#york poems on Hello Poetry

Nat Lipstadt Sep 8

Sat. moody: cause i'm in a new york city f(r)amed of mined

(at a time and place, where days are no longer individuated by name, any day, everyday, can be a Saturday)
~~~~
sometimes ya gotta get help,
to see yourself, in the light of
of other's filtered x~ray vision,
to cut through the indecision,
am I this or that, dog or cat,
what the heck, I gave me best,
and no one has ever called me
                                                     poet yet,
cause i'm in a new york city f(r)amed of mined

broadway is just an indian path,
we stole. borrowed & renamed,
the Yankees haven't won a Series
since time in memoriam, forget the mets
no one ever called them a baseball team
                                                        ever, yet,
when i'm in a new york city f(r)amed of mined

guests /(locust pests) have invaded every
crannied nook, sand and rugelach
crumbs, will be spewed, & spend
the rest/best  of their now[Surprise!]
extended 7 day weekend, while the
man~maid/me!made follows close on from
behind with damp cloth & hand hell'd (not a typo)
vacuum till I throw in the towel and get
the big guns, showing my grumpy age of 101,
and I'm just doing my cranky impression
of Lenny Bruce in a Bill Joel fouled up mood
                                                          cause, yup,
when i'm in a new york city cranky f(r)amed of mined

been up since 195?, haven't gotten a good night sleep
since the first time they counted my fingers and toes,
god knows, came in yowling. cranky even then,
and here I am on a gorgeous funday sunday on
my hands and knees, not very pleased because a sandy
beach is now in the living room, the geese are back
for a fourth time, to foul the lawn and my mood,
around 10am, the guests will be emerging uncocooned,
stomack growling. for bagel, challah french toast, oat milk (WTFO),
and me listening to Nina S., cause today's a best-to-get-in-an all~in
moody blues haze around my head and all cause
                                                           nothing good occurs
when i'm in a new york city double swanky f(r)amed of mined

ok she's not eavesdropping on my mind or over shoulder
spying on what I'm writing, but she knows where my
head is at because she counts my sighs like I count
her sneezes,  and she's leaving before the cleanup
begins, and some blood may get spilled, cause **** me
when i'm in a new york city f(r)amed of mined

anything can happen, especially
when them they ask if they can "have''
the house for, uh, every September, weekend,
and i just walk to the beech,
and hang myself from with
the ropes from the tree swing,
and whaddya know!
                                                  i'm no longer in
                                  a new york city f(r)amed of mined

week of 8/25

#nat #lipstadt #new #york #city #framed #of #mined

Kiernan Norman Jan 3

MARIA, COME BACK

The platform smells like skunked beer and rain,
a combination that feels almost romantic
if you tilt your head the right way.

I’m here because I missed the earlier one,
but maybe that’s the point.
Maybe everything worth waiting for
comes late, sticky, and half-empty.

I lean against the pillar,
fingers tracing someone’s graffiti confession—
MARIA, COME BACK.

I wonder if Maria stood here once,
tracing her own name in the dark,
wondering if it was enough to stay.

I hope she didn’t.
I hope Maria found something better
than this station,
this boy with a Sharpie
and a bad sense of timing.

I decide Maria is smarter than me,
that she’s already figured out
how to leave for good.

The train squeals like someone giving up
mid-argument, its voice cracking
just before the silence. I step inside
like a swallowed comeback.

The train jerks forward, pulling me with it,
an accomplice to leaving,
taut between the tension of wanting to stay
and disappearing into every local stop we make.

I press my forehead to the window
and watch the city unravel backwards—
neon signs blinking like eyelids,
lights flickering like answers
to questions I’ve stopped asking.

For a moment, I’m so full of joy
it feels reckless—
like daring a wave to pull me under,
knowing it probably will,
like I’ve stolen something precious
and can’t bear to give it back.

For a moment, I’m so full of hope
it feels wild—
like I’ve caught a glimpse of something
I’ve spent my whole life trying not to lose,
like maybe this train is taking me somewhere
I’ve been running from my whole life.

And then the lights flicker,
and I laugh—
because of course they do.
Because nothing this weird and beautiful
could ever come without a catch.

The train jerks,
a man drops a tallboy,
its amber spray spreading like a secret—
a casualty of motion,
spraying my boots,
reaching me before I can move,
because some things always do.

The rain streaks the windows,
the world pressing its palms
against the glass,
trying to remind me it’s still there.

And me? I’m here—
alive, for better or worse,
in this strange, messy moment,
with a Sharpie in my bag
and an urge to go back and write my name
like a flare next to Maria’s,
just in case she’s still out there
and she’d like to know I’m out here too.

This is what we do:
leave traces in places
we’ve long since abandoned,
hoping someone sees them
before they’re painted over.

#nyc #new #york #train #subway #graffiti #maria

Nat Lipstadt Aug 2024

a note from Eliot…

“hey.. yes, trying to get some things updated around here… now... so sorry for the outage! but things should be tip top now.. still ironing out a few kinks though
Regards”

#eliot #york

Anais Vionet Nov 2023

a twilight rising

I love it when Lisa and I take our show out and, on the road,
like this twilight helicopter flight, from New Haven to LaGuardia.
I’m so excited about tonight, it’s possible that I might implode.

The rotor blades started twirling, our luggage had been stowed,
the pilot asked Lisa. “Ready for takeoff?” Lisa grinned saying, “Let's go!”
He gave her a quick and crisp salute and the engine noise started to grow.

As we went wheels-up, the whirly-birds warning lights began to strobe.
Yep, It’s the start of November recess and we’re changing our zip code.

We rise like a balloon, at first, until the harbor comes into view.
The engines were screaming like jets, when the whole world turned askew,
I’ve done numerous take-offs like this, but it still feels like I might spew.

Above the rear cockpit window, there’s an air-speed indicator that looks like a clock.
With a quick turn over Yale’s campus, we’re going 90 as we steak over the docks.

As we ascend into the night, the twinkling lights of New Haven seem to shrink.
We’re swiftly gaining altitude, this quivering contraption, moves faster than you’d think.

As the red numbers settle at 260, the vibrations have all but ceased,
The engine noise is gone as well, as we race up, in the darkness and out over the sea.

I try not to think of the inky black water, how far we would fall and how quickly we’d sink.

Long Island Sound glittered, like fractured glass, under the waxing crescent moon.
The forever-blue sky was hosting a large, fake-star, because Venus was glowing there too.
That dark almost-orbit was prettier than the infinity-of-lights we’ll see on Park Avenue.
We’ll be meeting Peter’s flight from Geneva - a surprise - he doesn’t have a clue.

As the lights of New York become pronounced, so does my excitement that he’ll be around.
I’m sure we’ll get a moment of quiet intimacy at the LaGuardia international arrivals lounge.

#travel #helicopter #new #york #city #holidays #boyfriends #nervous

Bruce Adams Jul 2019

coney island hymn

on ruby jacobs walk, a
small girl
asked us for money for ice cream.

she eyed our cones
                                yours, lemon
                                mine, strawberry
with a child’s hunger
glinting and opportunistic
as she held out her palm for coins.

i was not yet accustomed to the shapes and sizes,
to a dime being smaller than a nickel,
and in any case wanted to preserve them for souvenirs
so we shook our heads and walked away.

a year later, writing this poem,
i learned that ruby jacobs was a local restauranteur
who, as a boy,
illegally sold ice creams
for a nickel on the boardwalk.
                                                a nickel is the larger coin
                                                the size of a ten pence piece.
                                                i know that now.

the wide atlantic rose from a sloping manicured lawn
        star-spangled,
                                like everything here,
                                                                the airborne flag
                                                                above a wide pavilion
                                                                a fanatic wedding cake topper
                                                                against the blood-blue sky.

        i slipped
out of my shoes and let
the white sand burn my feet,
and jaggedly fill the spaces between my toes.

the atlantic held open its arms
though we weren’t, as we imagined,
                looking east
                looking home
but south to new jersey, across the bay.

the gnarled boardwalk was a
song of the twentieth century
        a roll-call of mass-market capitalism
        here in the city that didn’t invent the concept
        but certainly perfected it:
                                                hot dogs
                                        amusements
                                ice creams (we’ve covered that)
                        fridge magnets
                baseball caps
        i bought an espresso cup with a picture of the president
and the caption:
                         ‘huuuuge!’
i stopped to take a photograph
of a space-age building from the fifties
which turned out to be
                                        a public toilet.

later
from the sunbaked d train,
brooklyn spread out beneath us
the houses garnished with flags,
then the city coughed us up on seventh avenue
and night fell five hours early.

20.7.19

#new #york #coney #island #travel #travelogue #travelog #nostalgia #america

Rama Krsna Jul 2022

last time at bat

by this man-made lake
a steady drizzle hums,
the sun, yesterday’s news
as nature’s palette turns green and gray.

staring into the gun metal sky
she nuzzles her hennaed hair
into his gandhian lap,
mesmerized by the pitter patter
she dubs, as tears from heaven.

a bow-shaped stone bridge on the near horizon,
red-eared sliders floating on the water,
the pencil thin architectural skyline,
even the floating melancholy mute swan
beckons monet to rise like the phoenix
and have a second go at whimsical life

but not me,
with a cornucopia of life-scars to show,
and a ticking clock that’s monotonously relentless,
this trip to the crease better be
the last time at bat

© 2022

#love #time #beauty #reflection #reincarnation #death #nature #rain #new #york

f Feb 2022

new york, new york.

from my new york window,
i can see tall structures,
see snowfall upon green rust,
tiny ants move busily on jobs,
with their lives, missing rides,
all of this from a glass wall.

from my new york window,
i can find peace.
if it means staring at life moving,
playing a one-person game

is new york always this quiet at night,
the stars not shining as bright?
does their light not burn through dark stone?
or bring out the best in all?
new york, new york
where are you?
where are your wonderful parties?
where have you been?

from my new york window,
i can tell its faint outside
where are your constellations?
they used to move around your city
i miss when they were nebulas
just starting to explore the world
i was never like a ball of fire
so eager to be thriving
so ready to leave being an atom,
joining molecules, being compounds

new york, do you miss me?
do you remember our memories?
of us in the snow, looking above, making angels,
talking about how life would never be enough?
new york, don't you remember,
you and i being friends, singing together?
new york, you don't remember me
because i was never there,
i have never been to your magnificent city.
you are for all the big lights, the huge suns
i was never made to be a fireball,
never so much one to live a free life
new york, don't miss me
I'm not worthy of being so precious like your sky.
i never was, i never will.
new york, my best wishes to you,
don't forget me,
when you don't know me well.

in the third stanza, im talking about new york during the pandemic.

#new #york #stars #cities #ants #snow #parties #people #apple #memories

Anais Vionet Jan 2022

Stinging January morning

I saw Sting in the lobby this morning, we were going out and he was coming in. Lisa nudged me, “Sting” was all she whispered. He was with a woman and a man. The woman was talking to the doorman. Sting was dressed all in black except for a long stark-white cashmere scarf, he was chatting and working a dark-gray French-flat-cap around in his hands. His hair is very short and white.

We wanted to walk in the snow, if only for a minute.
A gust of wind caught us as we reached the sidewalk. The two American flags, on either side of the entrance, went rigid, at 9-o’clock as if saluting us. “Jeeez!” I said, like the Georgia girl I am - or was. “Don’t be a baby,” Lisa answered, like a true, pittyless New Yorker but her cheeks had turned a child-like pink. She flipped up her collar.

I patted my pocket, relieved to feel my phone and know that if we froze to death the authorities could use “find my friends” to locate our bodies.

Leeza joins us a moment later and I can’t help but notice that she’s dressed like it’s a cool fall day. Back in the day, when my brother would dress like summer even though temperatures in Georgia had dipped cruelly into the fifties. Seeing him, my mom would say, “Where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling,” but I don’t.

“Did you see Sting?” I asked Leeza (12). She gives me a blank look. “Sting”, I said, “the lead singer for The Police?” I add, as clarification. “I don’t know who that is,” she says flatly. “He was famous,” I say in surrender, “a long time ago, in the 90s.” Maybe the next generation won’t be as celebrity driven.

Thank God Lisa suggested I pin my artist-beret down or it would have blown away, like my resolve to walk in the snow. Still, I followed Lisa into the park like a cat on a leash - unwilling to be seen as any less Canadian. The show crunched like we were trampling over snow-cones.

Trees began turning away the wind as we entered Central Park, “I think we may survive.” I said cheerfully. Just because you're freezing to death doesn’t mean you can’t be affable.

Why don’t pigeons freeze to death - I thought birds flew south for the winter?

BLT's Merriam-Webster Word of The Day Challenge: affable

#new #york #cold #snow #january #celebrity #teen #central #park

Anais Vionet Oct 2021

a small star

I spent Fall Break with Lisa (one of my college suite-mates) in NYC. They live in a Central Park South high-rise. I hope to spend Thanksgiving there someday because the Macy’s Day Parade goes right by their front window. “Yeah,” Lisa says in a bored voice, “right down there.” (They’re about 45 floors above it.)

Lisa has a younger sister (12), named Elizabeth (who likes to be called Leeza (pronounced LeeZa) and yeah, that can be confusing). Pretty, little, stick-figured Leeza, wears braces, has fluorescent green eyes, long, curly, red hair, and gorgeous, fair, vampire-like skin that’s freckled to perfection.

Leeza is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met - so she’s always surrounded with laughter - and goaded by laughter, she’s fearless. We’re at this posh “On the Green” restaurant (outdoor, terrace dining) and Leeza won’t take her Airpods off (no matter how mad her mom gets). Her dad finally says, “What are you listening to?”

When asked, Leeza stands up and starts singing, clapping and herky-jerky beat-dancing “the Monster Mash.” It was so sudden and funny that I coughed cherry coke out of my nose. The entire restaurant erupted in laughter and then applause at this crazy, scarecrow beauty’s brief, comic performance.

Someday that girl’s gonna be a STAR.

Fall break in New York City - woot! Although it's on 60 miles from New Haven - it's a whole different world.

#fall #break #new #york #city #macys #parade #humor