1THE DOWN drop of the blackbird,
The wing catch of arrested flight,
The stop midway and then off: off for triangles, circles, loops of new hieroglyphs-
This is April's way: a woman:
"O yes, I'm here again and your heart
  knows I was coming."
  
2White pigeons rush at the sun,
A marathon of wing feats is on:
"Who most loves danger? Who most loves wings? Who somersaults for God's sake in the name of wing power in the sun and blue on an April Thursday."
So ten winged heads, ten winged feet, race their white forms over Elmhurst.
They go fast: once the ten together were a feather of foam bubble, a chrysanthemum whirl speaking to silver and azure.
  
3The child is on my shoulders.
In the prairie moonlight the child's legs hang over my shoulders.
She sits on my neck and I hear her calling me a good horse.
She slides down-and into the moon silver of a prairie stream
She throws a stone and laughs at the clug-clug.

Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name!

No big deal, your name, your email, bought n' sold daily,
Like a baseball card, your picture and vital stats are on the internet,
Your credit card in the fine print tells you they love you much,
But the data they collect, might get credited to such and such.

You're fair game if your sign up for anything.

Now I know I am getting on in years,
Tho spry rhymes with die, I flatly deny
Any notion that
My great beyond is just around the corner!

But Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name!

Got a color brochure
Suggesting that when my travels are over,
A nice place to rest my head might be
St. Michael's Cemetery.

St. Michael's Cemetery
7202 Astoria Blvd, East Elmhurst
(718) 278-3240
Friday hours 7:00 am–5:00 pm

In case you want to check it out too...

Tho I live not in the Borough of Queens County,
My zip code but a hop, skip and jump away,
The cemetery adjacent to the Grand Central Parkway
Which is actually quite thoughtful of
The mass marketer who dreamed up this scheme
(And got paid a plentiful amount of bounty).
My kids could wave as they drive by,
On the way to LaGuardia or JFK, (airports)
And say, guilt free, they visit me regularly!

Sadly, their plot foiled,
I will be buried in
New Jersey soil,
Near to my pop, who liked the
Wide open spaces of suburbia
And shopping on Route 4,
Where the selection is great
And there is no sales tax.

But Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name,
And I am now target marketed,
Niched, pretty soon the boys from AARP
Will come calling, reminding me of the gap
Tween Medicare and the poor house!

Ok ok,  grow up you say, tho your hair is full,
And not even a hint of baldness shines forth,
Nonetheless, its color is zebra striped gray,
And when someone says they got my back,
I think, please, please take it and keep it....

Oh yeah,
Dear St. Mikes
You might ask for some of your money back,
Cause this sily scribe is a member of the tribe,
Some call "those ***** (hint: it rhymes with Mikes),"
It starts with K and ends in yikes!

But thanks for thinking of me anyway.

wearing your brand-loyalty like a politcal campaign t-shirt
cute
you almost seem proud to be so very confused
walking to the beat of the same **** pop-song that every ******* radio station's been blaring for months
designer cup of sludge in hand

and the billboards tell you that you might be pretty
maybe
some day
if you drop thirty-five pounds and buy an over priced bottle of this seasons heavily-scented false sense of "belonging"

that outghtta do it

tuck
lift
plump

fake it

cash in your mail-in rebates for another hunk of junk with a heavy price tag
determined solely by how badly sad saps like you
will want what the magazines say that others have

how sad

you lost sight of yourself years ago
somewhere in the housewares section of the Elmhurst Target

you drifted off near the alarm clocks
whilst day-dreaming about wall-paper schemes
and zebra wood cupboards
and an apron that would match your sunday dress

you got it mixed up

worth isn't measured by cost
beauty isn't measured in inches
and wealth most certainly isn't measurd by a bank statement

but scoff
and laugh me off
like i'm some kind of eccentric fool
rendered maladjusted after years
of steady
concious
thought

leave me to squelch in the riches
of my own cosmic existence
penniless
and proud as a king

leave me to find the mountain's top
and ocean's floor
and black-top's end

leave it me
to be me

i'll go ahead and leave it to you
to be them

We used to run around the streets in Elmhurst. Play football and bounce the ***** off windshields. Get into tussles and act like tough guys. Somebody on the block always opened the hydrant when things got too hot.

There wasn't a lot of running inside the walls of my high school. It was a train to a bus ride away from home. But it felt a world away.

I'd meet the homeys after school, out on the handball courts in Broadway. Sometimes I didn't bother going to school. I'd skip straight into acing fools on serves.

It's a habit I've kept with me over time. I've had trouble seeing the opportunity right in front of me because I've believed things had to be a certain way. I believed new relationships couldn't be formed as strong as old ones. But I was wrong.

I made it through high school. First kid in the fam to graduate out of college. First generation middle class man from the streets of a lower class upbringing. I don't get to bare that too often. And I don't get to speak my speak all time. Often times I've had to change tongues, dig outside my element to feel a part of something. More often I've chosen not to do so. Out of pride? Out of principal? I probably know as much as you. And that's nothing. But wherever I am, there are places that I came from, people I have met, things that I have been. And without them I'd have no words for you.

the essentials,
compelled by oath and compassion,
run into raging fires
every day, every hour
every time duty calls,
they run.
when towers fall,
they run.
when lightning strikes and thunder rolls
and tall trees crash through walls
of our homes,
they run.
when riptides rise and tornadoes roar
and earthquakes shake the earth to its core,
they run.
when hearts fail and lungs need air,
they run.
when bones break and blood clots,
they run.
when cars crash and trucks roll,
they run.
when panic attacks,
they run.
when maniacs relapse,
they run.

and when a pandemic
rips cities to shreds
from wuhan and cremona
to elmhurst and madrid,
filling hospital beds
with desperate, breathless strangers
chests heaving,
eyes pleading,
“save me please!”

they
run.

ayo.

~ P