Carpool Lane

Daniela felt safe in the carpool lane. The windows were fogged. The head rest of the passenger seat was up high. A tall man could be sitting in front. She mimed conversation. If the police pulled her over, she’d introduce them to ‘Harvey.’ 

Few cops would step outside in a rainstorm for a carpool violation.  Then again, it was as warm out as it was wet.  She held her breath every time the lines between lanes opened to allow her to merge, back, into regular traffic. Every time she thought about doing so, a trail of red brake lights glared through the mist. 

A sign above read, “Slick conditions, drive slow.” The tail of a jackrabbit stuck up from a puddle of guts. She looked straight ahead and pressed down on the gas. Empty white diamonds on the black top slid under her car. 

Breaking this little law kept anxiety at bay. She remembered thinking that if everyone were allowed to break little laws, they’d be less likely to commit the big crimes that anxiety caused. That was the last thing she remembered thinking before being lulled by the rhythm of the windshield wipers.

Utilitarian orange of a Home Depot sign crept into the corner of her eye. She took a swig of coffee and turned the radio on. The DJ was giving away a trip to Manhattan. She turned the radio off again. She tried to separate the parts of  New York she knew from experience, and the parts she remembered from watching The French Connection.        

Popeye Doyle racing through Bensonhurst in a slick brown ride that would have been considered a beater by the time Daniela was born ... Robert in grey corduroys stepping out of a yellow cab onto Eighth Avenue. A rush of heat fogging his glasses. He polished his lenses with a corner of his checked shirt tail and squinted into the sun.  In that moment she knew she could love him. The fact they were already six-months married was an irreconcilable shame. 

When the lines broke again, a motorcyclist crossed in front. His taillight looked like two apostrophes forming a heart. A heart, or the nose of an animal’s skull. Nostrils on a human skull looked more like lungs. She realized it had stopped raining, turned the wipers off and took another breath.  A sugary scent in the car made her feel sick.  She glanced down to crack the window open. When she looked up, an SUV jerked from the traffic jam, out across a block of double lines ahead. 

If the driver had checked their mirror, the motorcycle had been in their blind spot. The bike hit the SUV at full speed. She didn’t remember swerving, but she knew she must have swerved when she hit the brakes. There she was stopped on the median of the carpool lane, alone in her car, with a man on the hood. 

His hands were closed as though he were still steering the bike. His body shook and the ring on his finger tapped on the broken glass.

 “We’re born with our fists clenched ...”  

A taxi driver once said as they drove around Columbus Circle. 

“... the closer we get to death, the more our hands fall open.” 

“He must still be alive.” Daniela thought. 

But the rider’s eyes were open wide and fixed on nothing. 

Editing Continuity

A ruddy hawk

circles the pond 

across the lot

from the cafe

where Robin Hood plays 

on a flat screen

mounted to the wall. 

Wearing burgundy robes,

a monk steps in,

facing me,

parallel to the TV 

and to the caped-back 

of Errol Flynn.

“You’re a strange man.”

says Lady Marian,

(Through the magic 

of closed-captioning)

. . .I can't understand -

you, a Saxon. . .”

“Saxon. . .Norman. . .”

Robin replies. 

“What does

that matter?”

The monk clicks his tongue

to a rhythm disguised 

by his Beats headphones. 

He begins pacing in spirals,

blending some cosmic batter, 

around the communal table 

where I sit alone. 

And I wonder if it means  

that I'm finally churning into one

with everything and every one--

the fish, the hawk,

the monk, the sun ...

 Olivia De Havilland? 

For Bob Dylan With Love from Aly D

Blaring past the blues room 

by the down and out motel.

Dodge to give the muse room

(There’s an outline where he fell.)

Tell it to the newsroom—

ah, tell it to the wind: 

Your butterfly’s been fingered,

she’s had her sweater pinned. 

 

Robin, she was reckless

and so did refuse to nest

The jay birds were left breathless

by the copper in her breast.

The cuckoo, too, was feckless

but he could talk her talk:

Clucked, "If you're renting by the hour,"

"You oughta see my clock."

 

Wolves detecting fresh meat

left Mister Pig in sutures, 

when he went down to Wall Street 

to swap pork belly futures.

Inside trading wasn’t discreet

they slapped him on the block ...

chopped him into bullion, said:

 “Now he’s worth some stock.” 

 

Beat the weathered war drums.

Cry, “Every thing’s been fought!”

Wallow in the doldrums.

Aim, to take another shot.

Swallow to save your eardrums 

from the ricocheting din:

Vice has always been the virtue,

kindness, always been the sin.

Beckett v. Tolstoy

beckett & tolstoy

jousted on tuesday.

one had a horse and a spear

and a blister on his index finger;

the other,

the minimal shield

of a tin-can buccaneer, 

and the steel to 

let 'less' words 

linger. 

Raspberries

I study human nature 

as a bird sustained

by the beauty of brains,

formed on brambles.

For Peter on His 50th Birthday

Oh New York! You bastard burning hope into my heart. You nondescript corporate Irish bar at 57th & Broadway—across from the 8 millionth coffee shop, of equally nondescript, corporate identity. It’s the way you keep your cheese on a roll, so thick and creamy even in its processed state, that makes me love you so.

You, leaving me leaking blue-blooded songs and longing to regale in Penn Station and back, to wherever it was I wanted to come--through tin loudspeakers  and tête-à-têtes with soldiers, ready to deploy.

To your liveliest lights, in your darkest nights.

To your well-planned parks that seem to suggest,
humanity and technology
can coexist,
peacefully.

You’ve a right to swallow the fire,
of those nuisance gods,
and belch it back up again,
til Broadway yawns neon.
.
Who, save for you, New York,
would have thought those claustrophobic theatres
could be the last of communal cares,
forever ducking the blind of progress?

You, New York, in your grey-flannel suit,
who undoes a top button once in awhile
to let an outsider into your heart—
maintaining history, without letting
the historians intervene.

Reckoning with your erosion,
self-conscious of your past,
but without need to redefine yourself,
within the rhetoric
of politics.

You big liberal, you!
Current affairs splash in your wake,
but become ripples
sliced aloft by your stoicism.
No city is an island but you,
New York …

… a fiend and a friend and a find in the
art markets of Soho and the buckets of Chinatown:
“Flesh or fish.”
It’s all the same to you.

From the golden mellow sun,
At the entrance of Central Park,
in summer.
To the perpetual slate of Park avenue--
where, for all its purported glory,
the street becomes unnecessarily wide,
in places,
swallowing
up
its
own
stories.

And, in the midst of Chelsea's tattered dregs—cloth and silken stems—where near morning, pigeons clamour, picking at the humbled ends of fruit stands hastily dismantled at night fall, renewing themselves again by noon, after spewing shredded lettuce amidst a Calvary of slated box tops, smashed!

And oh, New York, with your wealthy enclaves outside yourself. Winding roads left wondering if they'll ever lead back to roam those precise streets, where many found, there, glory, and masses came upon their deaths.

New York, you kill me slowly and I have always loved you for that.

Especially that tiny hovel of clutter above 8th Avenue, where a strange man I once loved bought me cheese on a roll despite his better judgement. Because he knew I was young and tired and brilliant and needy and every adjective that a person who ever sought you out, might be after they'd arrived across the bridge and awed by the suspense, needed sleep and sustenance.

Transcendental Waitressing

I read the work of the monk, Hahn,

all the way from Vietnam:

“If everyone gave up grain alcohol & meat,

there would be enough arid soil,

to grow food for all people to eat.”

So, I gave up beef and booze 

and lost my job.

Because I worked at a bar,

where my coworkers were pretty sure,

abstinence equalled judgement.

But, that’s not how I meant it--

I wanted to sustain the right,

to go back to beef and booze,

if the need presented.

I read Robert Thurman’s interpretation,

of the Tibetan Mother Meditation:

“Look in the eyes of all people

as though they were your mother,

because when we nurture life,

we give birth to one another.”

But, not everyone’s mother taught, 

that love is the answer.

So, I stare at a spot,

above this man’s eyes,

where his balding forehead

is bearing skin cancer.

And, pitying the vulnerability in him, 

I forgive my own.

Because otherwise,

I can’t atone

for my dismay

at the rude way

he orders lunch

every day. 

I read the Dalai Lama,

and for a while,

gave up on all drama-- 

save for the histrionics 

of the woman in furs

who suddenly demurs:

“This food is no good.”

She takes me to task,

I just smile.

“Have you tried beef and booze?” I ask.