For a certain Jewish holiday,
A sukkah is erected,
An outdoor booth whose shelter
Keeps inhabitants protected.
Religious people take their meals
And socialize and sleep
In this temporary structure,
So traditions they can keep.
Each year, a sukkah somehow
In my neighborhood appears
By the efforts of a local group
Of Jewish volunteers.
It’s very bare-bones, just enough
To signal its intent
And those of the religion know
Exactly what is meant.
The sukkah stays there for a week;
Its visitors are few,
But yesterday I passed it
And I noticed something new.
An unhoused man was stretched out,
Like the sukkah was his home,
A different way to use it,
But just perfect for a poem.
OLD SKOOL FOREVER
Needle drops/
dust rises from the ghost in the turntable groove/
Intro hits hard/ then the bassline thumps on your chest/
The move is old skool ’n’ raw with lo-fi beats that will jack your jaw/
Drums cracked like thunder/
Popin' drum machine is mixed under/
Rare underground jewels pulled up from crates of old skool wonder/
Boom bap soul beat, truth in the snare/
Street-corner poetry hanging in the air/
From Dre and Snoop to Pun and Fat Joe, Legends lit the path, where rare 90's hip-hop mixtapes go/
Obscure tracks spin in underground pop-up hip hop shows/
Mainstream kings, underground lords/
Sharp-cut samples and lyrical swords/
No plastic shine/just rhythm and soul/ that brings back the essence of real underground Hip Hop blow/
Classic beats making broken nights whole/
DJ Smokin' Joe Keep ’em coming/pure heat to their dancin' feet/
No disguise, trends may fade and die/
but the culture survives. Hands to the sky, let the whole world know—Real hip-hop and old skool never dies/
Living near the mayor,
I am inconvenienced when
A head of state comes through the gate,
Which happens now and then.
The secret service and the cops
Block off surrounding streets
And if you try to get on by,
You’ll suffer some defeats.
But it’s much worse for those who live
Or work near the U.N.,
For they are barred, which makes it hard,
From getting home again.
Between the protests and the police,
They’re sadly out of luck.
Like all the crews who film the news,
They’re flat-out simply stuck.
We city people know the drill,
But still keep seeing red.
We disapprove, but would we move?
We’ll suffer here instead.
The price of pliability?
We sink into penury
All for a speaking slot
At UNGASS in NYC
They’re at it again
Another talk shop
Deals on the side
We are sold out
They wax eloquent
Mouthing platitudes
Promising data and gold
Doling mining rights
They return, all smiles
Frequent fliers, all
Praising themselves
Lining up for the buffet
Sometimes a poem only needs its title.
Sometimes though it’s clear
The lessons of history
Were never learned
In the first place.
(9/11/26)
Today’s a date you can’t forget,
When evil had its way.
To all responders, there’s a debt
We never can repay.
The world may mourn, but locals feel
A different kind of grief.
For here the shock was all too real;
We watched in disbelief.
For months we read the flyers
Of the missing and we woke
To the smell of all the fires,
Sadness mingling with the smoke.
In the classrooms, they’ll be teaching
Versions of that day’s events,
But, for most, it won’t be reaching
What that horror represents.
American cheese, if you please
Not Taiwanese or Japanese
Nothing Maltese or Vietnamese
American cheese, if you please
You say I must try Swiss Cheese
Lebanese and Nepalese
At Chanukah, ‘Monterey of Maccabees’
Farvoss?* American cheese, if you please *'What for?' (Yiddish)
But surely you’ll take a bite of Siamese
Portuguese, Pekinese or Paraguese
And how can you neglect Senegalese and Congolese
Not now. If you please, American cheese
Is our diner a narrow-minded provincial
Nisht!** ~ she’s old, a Jewish immigrant NYC election official **No! Not! (Yiddish)
Who would have thought it would come to this
The Big Apple, home of Wall Street
The Yankees, Broadway and Central Park
Would one day elect a Marxist Muslim mayor?!
Groucho must be rolling in his grave
As Harpo, well, plays his harp in pain.
I’ve been to The City, seen the World’s Fair
Ridden the subway, wandered all over there,
But now it’s somehow different
A new world in a new world order
It’s like the UN took over the town
Opened all its doorways to tear it all down.
Mayor Mamdani, may not last for long
May not even be legit if all votes were known,
But he will certainly be remembered
For polarizing his home,
And driving small minority owned businesses
Into the ground.
What comes next we want to know?
Maybe a Trump or something
Less conventional, more traditional,
Like an apple pie baking baseball playing
Yankee doodle dandy whistling mom.
Whatever it is I’m rootin’ for you NYC
Rootin’ and cheerin' for your comeback run.
(9/7/26)
The flawless Nebraskan sky hummed her blue tunes as I drove to work along that silent gravel road. Elegant white clouds wept as they gazed upon the chaos and dead innocence unfolding across the country.
I stared ahead as adrenaline carried me toward town and the need to begin again. The sounds of screams that had jolted me from my television still jolted my heart. Fireballs of horror exploded within my frightened soul.
Hours passed as I tortured my mind with gruesome details no one should ever have to know. Falling bodies and broiled flesh were too horrifying to imagine. The thought of a looming war was beyond my comprehension.
One quarter of a century has passed since that unimaginable Day.
If you don't remember that Day, then I envy you.
If you do remember that Day, then I hope Peace has adopted you.
We often take for granted
What’s familiar in our world,
Without the need to wave the flag
We rarely have unfurled.
Yet tourists sometimes help us see
How fortunate we are.
By looking through their eyes we know
How high we’ve set the bar.
I spent the day in Central Park,
New York’s most precious jewel,
Though many locals get there
Not too often, as a rule.
Our visitor from out of town,
Amazed at all the trees,
Made me recognize the beauty
Landscaped perfectly to please.
The shady walks, musicians
And the turtles in the pond,
Plus the people-watching chances
Took us to a place beyond
All the urban sights we pass each day,
Infusing them with magic.
Taking Central Park for granted
Is not very short of tragic.
If you love where you live
That’s a wonderful fact,
But you can’t expect others
To always react
To your choice of address
With a positive spin,
Especially if
It’s a city you’re in.
Oh, I’d never live there –
All the crowds and the noise!
The hustle and bustle
Which no one enjoys.
The subways and traffic,
The homeless, the rats;
The crime – have you noticed
The murder rate stats?
It’s useless explaining
Your opposite view –
The people to look at,
So much you can do.
The buildings, the plantings,
Museums and shows,
The shops and the restaurants
Everyone knows.
No matter how hard
You may try to convey
How you feel in the city,
There isn’t a way
To convince those who hate it
The reasons you’ve got.
It’s either inside you
Or else it is not.
Early morning, Carl Schurz Park,
And something caught my eye.
Right near my foot, a snail was
Inching forward, my oh my!
For surely someone on the path
Would crush his lovely shell;
Protection-wise, it really didn’t
Serve him very well.
I found a leaf and hoped he’d crawl
Upon it; what I’d planned
Was to move him to a place both safe
And on some grassy land.
A stranger saw me crouching down
And asked was I okay.
I pointed to the snail and thought
He’d soon be on his way.
But “Let me help” was what he said.
He lifted up the leaf
And found the perfect placement
Which, to all, was a relief.
He asked my name and shook my hand;
Our goodbye smiles agreed
That, by noticing the small things,
We’d both done a real good deed.
In the children’s ward of a hospital,
Through the W.P.A.*
A 16-panel mural
Was, for patients, on display.
The artist, Abram Champanier,
In 1938,
Took the Lewis Carroll characters
From “Alice” to create
A tale of Wonderland’s whole cast
As they visited each site
Of the city of New York
To fill the children with delight.
So there on Lady Liberty,
The subway and the zoo,
The Empire State and Steeplechase,
Are Alice and her crew.
The building was abandoned
After years and it was marked
For a renovation, so a group
Of volunteers embarked
On a plan to save the murals,
Which they managed to preserve.
Our gratitude is not enough
To give what they deserve.
The restoration took some years
And now they are on view.
A museum** in New York is where
I saw them; so can you.
How wonderful to have a chance
To see each vibrant scene
And to reinforce the joy of art
And how much it can mean.
*Works Progress Administration
**Museum of the City of New York
I can walk to some museums
From my home and often do,
But when MOMA* is the one I want,
It’s 3 stops on the Q.
The Q train’s fast and cuts across
From east side to the west
And mostly it works well enough
For all to be impressed.
I had a lovely visit
Seeing art both old and new,
With my day made so much easier –
Just 3 stops on the Q!
*Museum of Modern Art
manhattan roommate
brainwave specialist
blowhard rippling
always partygoer
dolphinfish royalist
turquoise irresistible
undrained rat
swearing yellowlegs
bearable humbling
houseguest behead
surrenderer bart
(Weekly Magnetic Poetry Challenge • July 20–26, 2026)
New York Categories
Definition | What is New York in Poetry?
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