Doldrums

July rains
baptize garbage piles
on 26th street
then evaporate
to twilight steam.

September’s still
beyond the horizon,
the soft shores of Spring
a distant dream
in my wake.

The Doldrums
of Gotham Summer
have becalmed my ship
and I am adrift
on this graffiti sea.

Adorned in albatross,
I will navigate
august Manhattan’s
burning quiescence
and trade for Fall.

(Excerpt from "Another Hotel Room")

Tempest

 

Tempest

As I hung up the phone I could feel the storm building
up in Westchester north of the city. Her words dank like
the afternoon air of New York in August. Those days
when the city begs for the relief only found in an angry
summer tempest.

Remember that day in Colorado? You asked me if I still
loved you as we drove to Aspen in alternating rounds
of rumble and silence.  And the clouds poured down
from the mountain peaks like cotton balls spilled from
their bag. The soft edges melting into the green slopes
as they rolled down to the valley. In the distance sky,
the gods of air, fire and water clashed unseen, save for
the flash and report. Thunder rattled with a sound
best described as titans tossing trash cans in the
alleyways of heaven. And then came the rains, first
with fury, finally with a sporadic gentleness and a glimpse
of reassuring sun.

Do I still love you? I smiled and thought it a silly question.
Weather, unlike climate, is a transient condition. On my
way out the door, I grabbed an umbrella just in case
the distant squall turned southward and sun was again
overwhelmed by a passing storm.

SMG   



A Hard Fall

Tepid,
neutral grey
and awash in
September tears.
Buildings stained
with the filth
of the last one
hundred years.
The heart of the city
is stainless steel
and does not
love the broken
or the weak
hearted.

SMG

Biking the Westside

Biking the Westside

I rode up the east bank of the Hudson
and watched a summer tempest
as it tore across New Jersey.
As the surge reached the palisades,
clouds chased the sun from the western sky.
The first drops of rain hit the pavement
with a bacon grease sizzle
and Gotham breathed a sigh of relief
as the July heat washed away.