Famous Short New York Poems

Famous Short New York Poems. Short New York Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best New York short poems

Snow  

 Late December: my father and I
are going to New York, to the circus.

He holds me
on his shoulders in the bitter wind:
scraps of white paper
blow over the railroad ties.


My father liked
to stand like this, to hold me
so he couldn't see me.

I remember
staring straight ahead
into the world my father saw;
I was learning
to absorb its emptiness,
the heavy snow
not falling, whirling around us.

There was an Old Man of New York  

 THERE WAS AN OLD MAN OF NEW YORK, WHO MURDERED HIMSELF WITH A FORK; 
BUT NOBODY CRIED THOUGH HE VERY SOON DIED, --
FOR THAT SILLY OLD MAN OF NEW YORK.

Fourth Floor Dawn Up All Night Writing Letters  

 Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof
out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross
surveys the city's blue-grey clouds.
 Larry Rivers
'll come at 10 AM and take my picture.
 I'm taking
your picture, pigeons.
 I'm writing you down, Dawn.

I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus.

O Thought! Now you'll have to think the same thing forever!

 New York, June 7, 1980, 6:48 A.
M.

The Tropics in New York  

 Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.


My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.