Un-Dead

Un-Dead

Alive, alive, the city is alive

and all abloom with smiles

under the warm and waxing moon

The stern days of winter have faded

from memory and the city is alive.

Streets once grey with soot and sleet

now teem with pale arms and legs.

Heads swivel and twist to take in

the fragrance of the fresh flowers,

all short skirts and décolleté:

We are alive!

A latter day Lazarus ascends

a subway stair and yells “I am alive!”

into the affectionate night air.

Six months hence the grave will call,

but for now we are alive and the city

is paradise.

SMG

Like the Moon

Like the Moon

The sun lost its battle

with darkness and slowly

set in the west once again.

It flashed in final defiance

off the high canyon windows

of the Thirty-Fourth St. corridor.

The night ignored the brilliant

epithets of rage and continued

to move across Manhattan, not

so much a thief, as a conquering army.

New York welcomes the nightly invasion

like a hooker greets a sailor on shore leave.

She revels in the cover of darkness

as her wrinkles disappear in the dim,

her marquee lights dazzle and distract

the critiquing eyes of daylight.

For the city is like a waxing moon,

its gravity--its pull ever present;

but it’s only when the sun goes down

that it really begins to shine.

SMG