Monday, July 28, 2008

New York Envy Pt. II

Working on a draft ... in lieu of moving to the city immediately, which doesn't seem to be in the cards right now, and is likely better as a fantasy anyway ...

***

Everyone is Having Interesting Conversations in New York

 

They rise like a haze of bees; they hum.

Talk of traffic and real estate

scintillates, as though 

the shine off curved sheets 

of mirrored glass rising toward satellites

 

has cast itself across every tone and tongue-

shaped syllable, turning

dullards sharp and spangled, making

 

an odd chin and offset eyes into goddess: 

a sheer thin bolt of fire made flesh

who wheels on her heel;

whose steel stiletto turns the earth.

 

The set of couples on the 6—their fine

disheveled coifs, their foreheads

glistening with sweat, their eyelids

glazed with copper—speak 

 

of the weather in such a way

No One in History has ever talked of heat

 

(which is unbearable: every step

into the tunnels a descent

into the throat of a dragon, the hot 

 

blasts of breath the trains leave in their wake

smell of cheese and rank river) and I 

 

want to be the shine on their faces, 

their impatience,

 

want to be the rat making its ginger way 

over this greenish crust of pigeon,

 

the eye of Horus inked beneath

the salt-pepper moss on a sixty-year-old

bicep, the pile of flour-dust bagels

in the window off Houston, the gleaming olive 

fallen dirt-caked into the gap of a grate;

 

I want to be the ridged veins

in the arms of the guy in the Jeter jersey

shooting up the tracks toward

the crumbling house of Ruth, 

 

to be his metallic green sneaker 

jittering against the gum-grayed lino,

 

the Shiba Inus, freshly groomed, their pluming tails 

weaving through the moving sleek leg forest

on Madison Avenue, their fur

shining with awapuhi oil, their mouths

stretchy with heat,

  

the girl with the neck of a geisha

checking the strap of her sandal,

her eyes flicking across me—

 

I agree with her judgment, I am

insignificant;

whole blessed hours 

careen past without me noticing

myself;

 

I want 

to not notice myself—

 

to sit instead

above this pond nicked with ripples, filmed

with cigarettes and duckweed,

and watch one golden koi float  

through the heart of the park, 

this glow of fish in which 

all the city’s 

wound and wheel and tremor

reaches, under milk-green water,

 

an almost

perfect

stillness.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nicely done and the metro area (as we who live in Jersey call it to elevate ourselves) often hums with insignificance. If it throbbed all the time, we couldn't stand it.

M. Carrie Allan said...

yes, I supposed constant throbbing might become irritating after a time.

in all honesty, I have only fits of NYC envy. usually quite happy to live in D.C., which doesn't throb so much as hiss, undulate, and occasionally sashay.

Maggie May said...

' her steel stilleto turns the earth'

what a kick ass line.

M. Carrie Allan said...

thanks, mags! :)

Anonymous said...

i too was struck by the steel stiletto and also the part where the woman looks at you as if you are nothing and you proceed to talk about your insignificance!
... if i may digress, i’d like to mention a delightful anthology of international poetry assembled by the polish/lithuanian poet Czeslaw Milosz. it is a wonderfully idiosyncratic collection and i was drawn to it because it contained so many poets i’ve never heard of: Jaan Kaplinski, Li-Young Lee, Oscar Milosz (a distant relative), “Yoruba Tribe” ... There are many well known names from the 20th century as well and a lot of Tang Dynasty poetry (Tu Fu is a particular favorite). Between the Tang and the 20th century, not a whole lot! I like the idea of a subjective anthology. You can’t blame Milosz for omitting, say, Donald Justice. It does not pretend to be comprehensive or objective.
In the introduction he writes:
“I try to forget about ... trends.” The poems are “short, clear, readable and ... realist.”
Here is one by Wang Chien (unknown to me), 736-835 called “The South.” Milosz says it describes a territory in what is now Viet Nam.
THE SOUTH
In the southern land many birds sing:
Of towns and cities half are unwalled,
The country markets are thronged by wild tribes;
The mountain-villages bear river-names.
Poisonous mists rise from the damp sands;
Strange fires gleam through the night-rain.
And none passes but the lonely seeker of pearls
Year by year on his way to the South Sea.
---
any suggestions of other anthologies?

M. Carrie Allan said...

Great post, anonymous person. And yes, I do have some anthology suggestions! In fact, I think this is a worthy blog topic ...

Anonymous said...

but where oh where did your "draft" go? will the alligators puke it back up like some half eaten marshmallow?

M. Carrie Allan said...

draft went away so I can submit it to pubs later on! no can do if it's up on a blog; many editors these days consider that "published," even if three people read it :)

Anonymous said...

so does that mean you can only post poetry you consider unpublishable?