Sunday, June 17, 2018

Another New York City Poem

It's hard to write in metaphors when you live in New York city.
Today I saw a homeless man's penis. It was shocking and horrifying and I felt anger and anxiety and pity and I don't know a how to wrap that expierience neatly in a metaphor and tie up the lose ends in a bow.
The subway systems are maybe a metaphor. Vital and important and dying and screeching.
I got harassed by a man on a nearly empty subway. He waved his hand in my face and as I stared straight ahead he called me a bitch. Homeless men and women wandering endlessly through the cars. Hoping for money.
Or maybe there's metaphor in a street fair. The block closed off and the smells of food and bright colors of clothes and the overlapping chatter and the tight, hot press of bodies.
New York city's packed street with the passenger cars and taxis and bikes and pedestrians.
Prospect park with dogs off leash and big, green lawns and homeless people sleeping in the tunnels and hidden kayak rentals.
This would be a terrible poem.
There's no theme. There's no rhythm. Just a jagged, throbbing life. A heart blood being forced through the streets and the tunnels and the tragedy and the joy.
Too fast to understand and too slow to even notice.
It's hard to write in metaphors when you live in New York city.

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