Report from Carnepropia

Sleeping alone these months

Citizen of the land of Carnepropia

Released on my own recognizance

Neither downcast nor joyful

Listening to my earworms

To the whispered counsel of my shadow 

                                   -- New York, November 9, 2012

Day at the circus

Came the circus to town

I stood in line

Bought my ticket

Expectations low

And was surprised

For a change the clowns weren’t sad

Clearly they’d made love all afternoon

The acrobats had wings

But were human after all

One of them cried after falling into the net

I could tell that one of the horses was galloping

In a parallel universe

Defying the whip

The mama elephant with huge scars on her side

Cut short her routine

To nuzzle her calf

A terrified girl in the crowd  

Was being comforted by a frightened boy

“The sawdust on the cuffs of my pants

Is so beautiful,”

I thought

“I’ll put my head into the lion’s mouth”

And I did

I did

I did!

That day I was

-- to paraphrase MacLeish --

Seven of the nineteen good people in the world

                                                -- New York, October 9, 2012 

Before the heat gets unbearable

Before the heat gets unbearable
Breakfast in the Secret Garden on 97th Street

Iced coffee whitefish on sesame bagel

Lucky me in the shade
Of one of the city’s only peach trees!

Questions pile up

Today’s question:
Does entanglement

"Spooky action at a distance" (Einstein)

Occur only in the quantum world?

What about that zig-zag couple
Of cabbage butterflies?

What about Rachel tugging at my heart

Across great distances?

In the Secret Garden a grown man trembles
Before the laws of physics

                                    -- New York, July 12, 2012 

Brooklyn dusk

First fireflies of the season
Drunk like me
On the last musk
Of linden blossoms

And if you ask me
Who I am now
I'll whisper your name

                                     -- New York, June 23, 2012