Where ere befell a guiding light
Shining eyes beheld a glory
Holp toward a muted purpose—
A distant feigning glimmer,
Beyond the pale of words.
An aching need to be remade,
A sculptor's hand; a brutal vision
A child; a blank canvas,
A naivety, a submissive nature,
An eagerness to please.
Lead them to a dimming light,
There amidst our dying shadows;
There betwixt the Sun and Night,
Where line the winding gallows.
Where shame forsakes the birth-right
That a darker voice be heard.
And offer up their souls of light
Like the flourishing of birds.
The blinding faith sees not the wraith
Whose night has coiled a cold embrace.
The sun shall nevermore break
Where the twilight, some sayeth,
Precedes its visage upon the lake.
Darkness shall have usurp'd the day
And those who needed believe
Shall have naught to say,
Atop the boroughs as they grieve,
Bearing the known regrets
And we—
The freedom used to deceive,
To let embolden depravity,
To watch the flames spread despair and misery.
The freedom to preach hate and heresy,
To wrongfully endure—
For which we all shall sorely pay.
Local breweries abound
And in New York there can be found
Beers from Brooklyn and from Queens
And all the boroughs in-betweens.
My spouse and I, both city-born,
Love I.P.A.’s, so we were torn
About which brew would be the best,
So we devised a little test.
We purchase bottles and some cans
To see if we’d be equal fans
Of breweries from Brooklyn (me)
Or from the Bronx (his pedigree).
Though neither one deserved a rave,
The Hazy Bronx one was the fave
So I’ll concede it should be praised,
But I prefer where I was raised.
I conjured the word persackerley
To go with the region Fazakerley,
Not mentioned in verse most of the time
Because of the difficulty of finding a rhyme,
So this North Liverpool suburb is little known
Though over the years it has steadily grown
With its hospital, prison and station
And it’s peculiar situation
Of being split between two boroughs.
It’s true because my research is thorough,
The boundary being Copple House Lane
Very unusual but not inane.
So thanks to my conjuring persackerly
You now know a bit about Fazakerley
Yes, you people know persackerly
The where and whereabouts of Fazakerley
If you think Its a bit of fun
Then all in all, it’s job done
From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda complained Why does God always have to be a man?
I replied He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!
Mind your Bees
Buzz
Sting
Ouch
Sweet honey, bumble and killer bee
Nectar of Yellow catkins
Abandoned boroughs
High mountain meadows
And hollow trees
Nests expand
Turn away if occupied
Rival of bird
Of mouse
A colony emerges
Bee mousse, a worm like parasite
Eat their nest, food and larvae
As does brown bear
It’s worst of foe
Sniffs for gold
And devours all its substance holds
A deep sleep in winter months
A spring awakening
Survival a test of time
Bees collapse to the ground with autumn fronds
Marckincia Jean
Free verse
08/11/19
The orchids in the Garden show,
So gorgeous, on display,
Must wonder what they’re doing there
In colorful array.
For it’s a long way off from where
They usually grow,
Where animals and insects
Are the creatures that they know.
Yet here the crowds come traipsing
To take photographs and gawk,
For orchids aren’t native to
The boroughs of New Yawk.
I’m sure they’d rather be back home
In jungle/forest setting,
But maybe they’re enjoying
The attention that they’re getting.
Dancing through meadows
Leaping over streams,
Walking through boroughs
With you my smile beams.
Under the charms of summer
With her golden glow,
Enticing two lone lovers
To let feelings grow.
With each passing day
As the winds softly blew.
There is nothing to say,
When I’m with you.
I'm not quite sure when
they first arrived by boat
stepping onto Ellis Island
which is in New York,
alls I know is that my
ancestors came from
Germany, Wales and Ireland,
probably in the 1850s
or around that time,
when a lot of immigrants
came to New York with
barely a couple of dimes,
escaping their countries
from all different kinds of plights,
the ones from Ireland were
starving from the famous potato blight,
settling down in cold water flats
in different Brooklyn boroughs,
a lot of my ancestors working
printing presses while some of
them were plumbers,
I'm sure they were afraid
when they first came to
the overwhelming "Big Apple,"
and looking for work was
probably stressful and
pretty cumbersome,
in my minds eye I often
think how it might have been
for all of them,
walking around the big city
searching for the American dream
while trying desperately to fit in,
but somehow they made it
and rose above all the strife,
and thanks to them their
future ancestors like me have a
much better life.
Shimmering sea, glimmering waves
Glistening waters, mirroring moon-glow
Beyond the beaches, coral lagoons
Mellow boroughs, dotting the shore
Rising sun, peaking through the sky
Day has arrived, ousting dark night
Merchant adventurers, sail forth to venture
The deep blue hue, revealed to the crew
Vast is its reach, and cool the salty breeze
Violent are its storms, and mighty its depths
Haunted by sirens, whose tunes take wing
Amid broken dreams, and forlorn hope
Morbid castaways, adrift or ashore
Gaze upon the horizon, dazed and confused
Perhaps they seek, an island of nymphs,
Just like Odysseus, or so they think
This is the sea, daunting and promising
Poseidon’s wonders, for all to see!
All rights released into Public Domain
From my penthouse here in Manhattan
I observe crowds of bodies all in fast forward mode
Through slightly dampened windows I watch fascinated
As locals and visitors cramp into one “Big Apple”
More people in Manhattan than my four neighboring boroughs
I am just an unknown local or tourist to most
Later I sit among strangers and friends on black plastic chairs
Near the porcelain figurine of Elvis, the King
Enjoying my Southern Country breakfast with a NY bagel for an extra dollar
In EJ’s Luncheonette, below my building, on the Upper East side
Different races, skins and religions harmonious
A multicultural city that never sleeps
Times Square magnificently lit at night
Bright lights all colors of the rainbow flicker
Broadway theatres and shows all famous in their own right
Central Park or Central “Perk” put us forever on the map, all thanks to six Friends
The rivers Hudson and Harlem bind us all together
As we chant to each other “Have a nice day”
If you ever visit you will have no reason to be
Bored in Manhattan
Crystal lines with their
sparkling sides glistening in
early morning light.
Evergreen, dripping with heavy white blankets.
Rabbits hiding in their snug little
boroughs, safe from the chill.
Snow rising high, into drifts and mounds that dwarf the trees.
The sun glitters off everything,
magnified by the icy prisms.
A red cardinal perched upon a silvery-green bough.
Ever watchful, welcoming winter with his cranberry plumage.
A crystal winter in the tranquil forest land.
in thee event
the gothic garlgores
shall fly away
from their ledges
chasing the doves
deep within the hedges
startling bearded crows
ice skating over lake michigan
gazing back
at lake shore drive
in the event
the roaring stone lions
guarding dusable entrance way
shall leave their throne becoming docile
purring at my feet as fountains flow
of fresh running tears
from the garden of forever
everyone will know
in the event
connecting canals valleys with tunnels
throughout sleeping boroughs
gathering within the palm of my hand
in thee event
across the ocean upon white sand
i shall perch weeping
in that final hour bidding farewell
divinely we shall all sup
from the very same cup
Oh no! Train again!
Perched upon parallels of steel,
You roll your way on heavy wheels.
Thundering through town
With a rhythmic rattle and clickity-clack.
Your deep throat rumbles diesel black.
Cars convey a cargo of corn syrup,
Commuters and coal.
You are an ant trail of steel
Packing prizes from a picnic port.
You are the artery of America’s life blood.
--Four full sets of dominoes
Laid in one long row.
--A segmented serpent
Slithering on shining steel.
--A bright-eyed Cyclops screaming in the night,
Awakening children with a fright.
--A termite traveling through boroughs
Beneath the “Big Apple”.
You are the canvas of gangland graffiti
And ferry for freight hoppers
Who dare to hitch a ride.
A network linking limits sea to sea.
Now, rattle past, and make it fast.
I’ve places I should be.
Considering all the people there, it’s a big state!
Many members from New York have talent that's great.
Poets hail from Syracuse, Rochester, Albany,
Plattsburgh, Scarsdale, White Plains, or Schenectady.
They may come from Niagara Falls or Binghamton,
or one of the five boroughs such as Bronx or Brooklyn.
From Long Island Sound, to as far west as Buffalo,
the poets from New York are the ones we should know.
These folks can write up a storm of impressive poetry.
Their fanciful works defy comparability.
They live anywhere between Yonkers and Utica.
The numbers of their great poems are a plethora.
So we salute all our members from the Empire State
You are the people everyone can appreciate!
A city with the tallest skyscrapers,
many languages spoken by friendly faces,
bridges that are wonders connecting the five boroughs,
and amidst art and folklore, there's always a clown with hysterical laughs.
The mighty towers were suddenly brought down by
a hatred too gruesome to remind all of lost lives;
they were the Motherland's pride: the two jewels of master minds,
the new ones, much prettier, are quickly rising up against the same sky.
Do I feel safe? I definitely do with the beautiful Lady Liberty
holding up the bright torch and needless to say how brave she is,
more than a sentinel who loves her immigrants who assimilate her ways
that they desperately seek in the name of freedom and equality.
A city founded by courageous men escaping religious persecutions by waterways,
even God blessed her for keeping her faith and made her great up to our days;
it's proper to say that this is the world capital for technology, art and trade...
so it's easy to guess where I am living now...the city where fortunes are made.
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