Manahachtanienk

Manahachtanienk

Henry’s boys
on the Halve Maen
must have seen
something in 1609,
sliding up river,
mapping future
condo projects
up and down
the Hudson.
For 400 years,
disappointment
has left its mark
on this city, ground
into the pavement
by centuries
of footsteps
up and down
the avenues.
Concentration
8 hours at a time,
57th to Wall Street,
Standard &
Poor Sobibór
as trains carry
their daily load
up and down
the tracks.
The lure of Gold-
man Sachs logic,
so we keep coming,
as fortunes rise
and humans fall,
like marquee names
up and down
Broadway.

SMG

I watched the sun come up from the departures lounge at Schiphol

I watched the sun come up
from the departures lounge at Schiphol

Beer tastes different at sunrise;
maybe it's the bitterness
something like regret.

I left you crying in California
and you said you understood
as I walked through the gate.
I suppose the avalanche of clichés
finally buried your resolve.
But we both know
it wasn’t me or you; it was us.
Me in my cuckold horns
and you in your orphan rags,
both of us reading from a script
that was ill conceived and poorly written.
You held me like I was your father
the night he walked out the door
and I fucked you as if my ex
was watching from the next room.

It is 6:20 AM and I still have
some distance to travel.
I imagine you have cried yourself to sleep by now
and I am here, attempting to write a poem
about the absurdity of Humpty
trying to fix a broken tin soldier.

SMG

Jordaan

Jordaan

I found myself  on a  bridge over  the Prinsengracht canal
in the disconnected calm  of three joints  from a coffee bar
and the cool predawn air. The click of Rembrandt’s footsteps
still echo down the cobbles at this hour--  Once, long ago,
I dreamt of the scene,  this moment;  fog  tickling  across
the warm canal water. I thought back to the person I was
when that dream was formed and I realized that I missed him.
He was young and idealistic, so unafraid, with a swagger
that  could  only  come  from  hubris  and  ignorance.

The damp morning air  sat on the shoulders  of my  jacket
and I smiled as I watched  a young  Dutch couple  fend  off
the chilly dark, oblivious to the painter and me as we took it all in.
The distance between that boy and the man that I would become
seems so much greater than the twenty five years it took to travel.
That  boy’s  dreams  have  turned  into  my  sad  reminiscence,
a longing for that time before disbelief and defeat; the un-jaded
days of wonder lost along the way. I wanted to see Amsterdam
before I died; I realize now that it’s too late.

SMG