The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets - The Poet's Press
The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets - The Poet's Press
The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets - The Poet's Press
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Like many others around me,<br />
I pick things up from the counter,<br />
then put them back —<br />
everyday urges seem so trivial.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is not one note of music.<br />
People keep stopping<br />
to stare nervously<br />
at the Empire State,<br />
like frightened squirrels<br />
in the shadow<br />
of a threatened sequoia.<br />
<strong>The</strong> sycamores in Bryant Park<br />
beam back the sun,<br />
an interrupted medley<br />
of overhanging clouds<br />
that pause, then part,<br />
then scud away.<br />
Seedpods of honey locust fall,<br />
curl brown like overdone toast<br />
on the pavement,<br />
but the delicate leaves remain above,<br />
still adamant green.<br />
It is not till night,<br />
till I turn the corner on Lexington<br />
and spy the dark hunched shell<br />
of the Gramercy Park Armory,<br />
that I see the leaves of this autumn,<br />
its feuilles morts,<br />
taped to tree trunks, walls and windows,<br />
tied to a chain link fence,<br />
row on row to the end of seeing,<br />
flapping in rainstorm, tattered, tearing,<br />
soon to be ankle deep in the gutter —<br />
these album-leaves of anguish<br />
burst forth with human colors —<br />
faces brown and pink and salmon,<br />
oak and ash and ebony,<br />
the rainbow of human flesh,<br />
of eye-flash —<br />
visages still in their conquering twenties,<br />
snapshot in happy moments,<br />
embracing their brides,<br />
babies on knees,<br />
license, yearbook, graduation photos,<br />
smiling at beach or barbecue,<br />
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