Too tired and bleary eyed to write
Prose, hears my ears my beatnick
Cray kick of a poem written here
In Lincoln’s Inn about Lincoln’s over where
Where I was 10 hours ago, in the
Village, the Greenwich Village, under
Another sun, spiked with different
Blossom, buzzed with New York
Chatters, oldish dames:
“I need a man, not a wimp, I told
Him straight.” Hair fuzzed with
20 years or more of dye, the cheaper
Kind. They look at me, I am not
From here, but then who is? A
Chinese man who could be
Mad takes his place on the
Next bench and sits squarely
Facing me and looks straight into
My face.
I feel no threat and
Accept that this is part of what
I expect from park life’s big apples
And feel a little disappointed when
He takes out his newspaper and holds it
Two inches from his face, short sighted and sane
The dames on the opposite bench continue and their
Chat becomes background, like the
Shriller chirps of the spring birds
Amongst the cuddly coos of pigeons,
The bill I hear now is from an older broad:
Fifty, with shortish darkish ash
Hair, glasses, comfy grey trousers, fishnet
Socks catching bulging ankles sitting snug
In red sneakers, she’s curled up on
Her newspaper, oozing appreciation of the day
Never had looks, never needed them, fashion her own hip.
She puts down her reading and is lively with the young petitioners who’re
Taking their blue Hillary Ts round the park, she’s not
Pro, can’t make out why, can’t hear fom here,
And the scene changes to a little Ray-banned man
Wearing the same leather jacket he wore in his 20s, strolling along with a
Sloppy slice of Joe’s fresh mozzarella, nothing better can be found
Or should be, this is what his Sunday is all about, he may have a
Family, but they’re not about, he may not have a job or he may be Al Pacino
Who cares, we’re all here in the park, come what may, it’s New York and
What’s more, it’s Spring.
Being Every Day 