POSTCARDS FROM NEW YORKSHIRE
1.
Hey Dan!
The Lower East Side is grand
There was a guy on a bench
With his arse and balls hanging
out
It was an anatomical cacophony
I have to step over rivulets
Of piss and puke
But not every morning
It’s just like home
You would love it
2.
We walk here
Under the shadow of a rose
Blue skies and no clouds
On Bowery
We look up unlike the locals
Who only wonder why
We hinder their progress
By keeping to our left
3.
Near the north end of Lafayette
Just up by Lt. Petrosino Square
Stands a raggedy man most days
Unless it rains
With a club in his hand
He lines up mini milk cartons
And attempts to chip them
From full on fifty feet
Into litter bins
Some locals sit on benches
Ignoring the innocent projectiles
That fly and pop all around
4.
The bar on Avenue B looked
suitably dirty
It was dark and the windows gave
no hint
As to what went on inside
I needed someplace quiet
To finish the thoughts I had been
carrying
There should have been sawdust on
the floor
Like the Yates’s of years ago
A few bearded men sat at the bar
Nibbling on their nuts
It was a trick they learnt early
I ordered a stout and watched the
menu
And looked at the t.v. screen
Two ultimate fighters got bloody
on the canvas
It was obscene
The pizzas were dairy free
And the gravy was vegan
They have landed
A few punches
A righteous hook
Here and there
The cheezeless amongst us
5.
Drinking in Lunasa
I assume that I am okay
Having come out of the otherside
somewhat intact
Now being half way to paradise or
the other place
Maybe more than half?
So it must be these others
That are the problem
With their independent thoughts
and noises
Christ, there should be a pub
quiz
Instead of this hopped and
hopping girl
Pretending to be a partridge
In a simulacrum of love
For a team saloon game
Although
I must say
Their win expectancy
Just went up 50%
6.
On our April return
We saw civilian troops
At their Sunday best
Summer dressed and celebrating
A mild mish-mash
Springly fevered and sprawled throughout
the streets
We heard
Forgotten sounds again
The alarms of insurance
A panic of ownership
The ignorance of the woop woop
What asphalt does to us monkeys
Again
We saw no stars at all
In the sky at least
For eyes are taken
To the horizon here
And all the man made lights
I thought
Not as an engineer
But a scrutineer
There is beauty at work
In industry at a distance
7.
At the immigration exam
Dr. Dave shakes
My hand
Red flowers spill from his cuffs
He shoves a thorn into my arm
But I refuse to bleed
Drip,
drip, drippy drip
He sings
Then he gives me a lollipop
For being brave
And scoots away on his motorbike
To make some tv
Reality
8.
The sparrows of New York
Are carnivores I’m sure
They don’t chirp
They ask for ketchup
The mice are as big as rats
But have twice the taste
They wouldn’t be found dead
On a Subway
9.
We were crossing at the corner of 1st
Avenue and 14th Street
The swirling weekly wind made its
appearance
And snatched a youth's change from his hand
As he exited the hot and crusty pizza place
Regardless of traffic or the lack of a
little white man
This dude ran into the street after
Washington
And we all watched his progress to the
gutter
With the help of the water collected there
He stamped his authority upon George's face
- Boy,
you chased that dollar down!
A wise old woman said
As the orderly ones amongst us caught up
To his fist pumping joy in this land of
opportunity
Though it used to pass
Some different place
There's a cold wind
Driving through the warmth
On the sunside
Of Houston Street
11.
In the land of the Everything Burger
It takes time to fry your fish
Tiny battles in a transatlantical
relationship
...
OK Pie it is
12.
Today we enjoined the rain
Like the umbrella sellers of Broadway
For whom opportunity plops
Carpe Pluvia!
13.
The extremely wild life of a Central Park
pond
Stands on one leg winterlong
To prepare for hypothermia
Back in the cold lands of summer
14.
As we sat staring at our hands
Rattling through the stations
Old Rasta Moses got some inspiration
“14th Street is run by lesbians”
He said
And repeated
“Take the L train
To Lesbian
Sqwair”
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