two poems

here it's a little closer to the sky

in ridgewood. photograph by me

I was on Bleecker Street

Not that one, the other one

The one that connects Bushwick Avenue and Fresh Pond Road

But to me it always seemed like Metropolitan and Myrtle

Manhattan is over there, see

Like a memory of an ill-fitting routine

Twisted nightmare shapes in January fog

Anyway it forms a sort of arch on the peopled moraine

A wall of bright blue ice busted its way up here and stopped for some reason

The heroic age has been over for some time

Leaving a combover of rocks and buildings that generally don’t flood

And the cemetery with the sleeping dead

Whose very thoughts have become geological

I was on Bleecker Street walking past the solemn and modest windows

Past painted-over rust

Past pink shards of stucco and fire escapes of course

Past electric kettles and velvet curtains

Past tiles in corner entrances and withered bouquets in windows

Past pendant lamps and plate glass

Past old metal signs and New Dream Land Deli

Figurative boundaries on endless options

Here it’s a little closer to the sky