A light mist of ethereous rain falls
silent on his thin, sharp-angled face.
He lengthens stride and leans toward
the wind. He walks through plundered
poverty; crumbled by the heavy weight
of the Americann exodus. Abandoned to
the blood-rough nails of feral creatures
scratching on the concrete diasporas
of multiethnic history.

Past the playground echoes of PS #59,
as they drift along the faded asphalt
haze of time. Echoes still ring true
with elemental bones of hope: the young
children break out and through gunmetal
gray, graffiti covered doors, outside to
the saturated heat of inner-city rage.

Past gothic orthodox cathedral mausoleums
that sit like ancient stoics and stare out
through burnt-amber, azure, crystalline-blue
stained glass eyes; focused with a kernel of
eternal mustard seed hope: souls will come to
warm again the Cedar of Lebanon sacred pews.

Past the Puerto Rican market where the pig's
head led the carnivore parade of mastication
promise every day. A meat-market window with
letted-blood and death reminiscent of Amsterdam
whores with their wares on display for the dead
fish-eyed stares of the men outside.

He comes to the dust and grime of an empty lot
covered by old and broken concrete slabs. He then
stops and lets his mind drift back to watch a woman
dressed in a ratted fox-tail wrap around her neck.
She holds a long, un-filtered cigarette, between her
two bright fuchsia painted lips. She wears a black
velvet hat with veil to her nose and a straight black
dress that flows below her knees, mid-calf, above her
shiny black, stilleto-heel, patent leather boots.

He can almost see through the blur of chiaroscuro choreography
his mother, visiting
with the Kazakhstan neighbors, in this
dreamlike memory. The multi-plexed, subsidized
housing project, where he was born, once stood
just beyond his vision of a mother's visit in high-heel,
indigo, tangerine, sibilant sounds; lit with
electric light smiles of denial.

She would hold her cigarette between fuchsia lips
and wear that ratted fox-tail wrap until the cancer
cough began to spew Chesterfield blood on the molted
fox-tail head of her beloved fur.

Then she went to bed. Went to sleep. And died.

Pigeons cooed quietly on that New York City night.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2010 04:50PM by easyeverett.

A portrait of the city many never see. Nicely done, Tom.

Les