62nd &
Broadway
At the center of the universe,
on an island within an island,
between oncoming and ongoing traffic,
sitting like Buddha with a light’n sweet coffee in hand,
I look up
as the sun beats down,
while pedestrians narrowly escape death,
seeking momentary refuge on my little island
before daring to cross to the other side of Broadway,
despite the orange-lit hand that forewarns.
A few make a mad dash before a mercilessly speeding cab
in the hopes that they will not become one with the pavement,
succeeding by barely a length.
No lesson learned here,
despite their mutual hyperventilation,
which I can hear from where I sit,
over the blaring horns and screeching brakes.
In truth, it’s really the only way to cross 62nd & Broadway,
unless you’re not in a hurry,
but everyone always is,
even with nowhere to go.
I’m not so centered, despite where I’m sitting,
despite my momentary lack of urgency to get somewhere
or nowhere.
I’m simply enjoying the view,
my coffee,
the sun,
and the feeling that I’m one with the universe,
instead of one of many trying desperately not to die.
Fearless
It matters most
when the butterflies come out,
and you can barely fathom a breath
or speak a word
or swallow,
yet you manage
because it matters
to face the daunting,
beyond the norm,
haunting,
until you surpass the dread,
arrive where you’ve been led
from something that’s taken you over
that knows no fear
but uses it like a cannon,
releasing you over the landmines of your mind,
which you now look down upon
like a fearless bird
eagerly about to enter somewhere you’ve never been
…and can’t wait to be.
To Be Loved…Again
To be loved,
longed for,
wanted,
accepted,
embraced,
thrown under the wheels of a speeding tractor trailer,
torched beyond recognition,
tossed from a 50 floor rooftop
onto the merciless sidewalk,
besieged by machete wielding Sous chefs,
sliced,
diced,
killed,
reborn,
loved…again.
The Awakening of a Mail-Order Bride
I’ve concluded that she was the equivalent of a mail-order bride,
at first,
though she wasn’t Asian
and, actually,
could not have been less so;
she was an Italian-American girl from North Jersey,
but, in the beginning,
she was meek,
naïve as to the façade that this marriage would become,
wide-eyed as to the prospect of love
and much younger than the man who would soon provide the illusion,
but eventually,
within a few years,
his confident European veneer,
which lured her in
like an aimless fly to a handsome frog,
would soon dissolve
as a result of his paralyzing fear of her,
for no longer was she the shy,
soft-spoken waif who wore the common housewife dresses of the late 60’s,
with ambition for little else but cooking and consolation.
She would wear his pants,
thus becoming the very opposite of whom he thought he had married
just a few years prior,
exiling him
out of their house,
and into his next life
…with his next wife.
Easter
They say that Christ was resurrected on this day,
which may explain why it always seems illuminated by a divine sun
and void of the usual theological ambiguity,
despite this day now representing the ultimate erosion of my family
from which I was sprung;
a day of tender ham, honey drenched yams
and searing tension,
the latter which would ignite a fire
that would symbolically burn my Grandmother’s apartment
to the ground,
sparing our flesh but not our collective psychosis.
The ashes whisking through the air,
the scorched corners of old Christmas cards,
charred photos of holidays past,
all memories of assorted dysfunction, gone
…like our sanity,
now replaced with denial,
dementia,
and my own decisive determination
that it may as well have happened then
because it would have happened sooner or later
anyway.
Sparrow Mother
So coldhearted
and void of conscience
are they who steal the eggs
from your nest,
leaving you crying hopelessly
for their return,
which will not happen,
because many are you;
sparrow mothers,
having to simply move on
with a punctured soul
yet a will of iron
which you cling to
like a raft
constructed from the slats of compulsion
to overcome
to triumph over the arduous elements
that are the mantra of the wild,
because mourning lasts only so long,
and there are so many tears that can stream down your beak
before a tree is born of the moisture;
a new home to house your new nest,
wherein your freshly laid little ones
will reside under you with warmed innocence
before facing the cold realities
which you know well
and will teach them
to defy.
The Perpetual Rainbow
Dorothy is told that she is ill
and must take a pill,
This one after that one,
before that one and after this one;
The White every 3 hours,
the Blue every 4,
The Yellow on Tuesday and Thursday,
the Green on Friday,
Before a meal,
…and after.
And if she can’t eat,
she must take the Pink.
And if she can’t sleep,
the Gray.
And if she can’t speak, see or swallow,
Both,
but not after the Yellow
or before the Green.
And if she forgets to remember,
the Orange.
And if she dare mentions homeopathy,
the Tri-Color horse tablet
followed by a doctor-prescribed glass of –
“It’s either this or death.”
Broadway
At the center of the universe,
on an island within an island,
between oncoming and ongoing traffic,
sitting like Buddha with a light’n sweet coffee in hand,
I look up
as the sun beats down,
while pedestrians narrowly escape death,
seeking momentary refuge on my little island
before daring to cross to the other side of Broadway,
despite the orange-lit hand that forewarns.
A few make a mad dash before a mercilessly speeding cab
in the hopes that they will not become one with the pavement,
succeeding by barely a length.
No lesson learned here,
despite their mutual hyperventilation,
which I can hear from where I sit,
over the blaring horns and screeching brakes.
In truth, it’s really the only way to cross 62nd & Broadway,
unless you’re not in a hurry,
but everyone always is,
even with nowhere to go.
I’m not so centered, despite where I’m sitting,
despite my momentary lack of urgency to get somewhere
or nowhere.
I’m simply enjoying the view,
my coffee,
the sun,
and the feeling that I’m one with the universe,
instead of one of many trying desperately not to die.
Fearless
It matters most
when the butterflies come out,
and you can barely fathom a breath
or speak a word
or swallow,
yet you manage
because it matters
to face the daunting,
beyond the norm,
haunting,
until you surpass the dread,
arrive where you’ve been led
from something that’s taken you over
that knows no fear
but uses it like a cannon,
releasing you over the landmines of your mind,
which you now look down upon
like a fearless bird
eagerly about to enter somewhere you’ve never been
…and can’t wait to be.
To Be Loved…Again
To be loved,
longed for,
wanted,
accepted,
embraced,
thrown under the wheels of a speeding tractor trailer,
torched beyond recognition,
tossed from a 50 floor rooftop
onto the merciless sidewalk,
besieged by machete wielding Sous chefs,
sliced,
diced,
killed,
reborn,
loved…again.
The Awakening of a Mail-Order Bride
I’ve concluded that she was the equivalent of a mail-order bride,
at first,
though she wasn’t Asian
and, actually,
could not have been less so;
she was an Italian-American girl from North Jersey,
but, in the beginning,
she was meek,
naïve as to the façade that this marriage would become,
wide-eyed as to the prospect of love
and much younger than the man who would soon provide the illusion,
but eventually,
within a few years,
his confident European veneer,
which lured her in
like an aimless fly to a handsome frog,
would soon dissolve
as a result of his paralyzing fear of her,
for no longer was she the shy,
soft-spoken waif who wore the common housewife dresses of the late 60’s,
with ambition for little else but cooking and consolation.
She would wear his pants,
thus becoming the very opposite of whom he thought he had married
just a few years prior,
exiling him
out of their house,
and into his next life
…with his next wife.
Easter
They say that Christ was resurrected on this day,
which may explain why it always seems illuminated by a divine sun
and void of the usual theological ambiguity,
despite this day now representing the ultimate erosion of my family
from which I was sprung;
a day of tender ham, honey drenched yams
and searing tension,
the latter which would ignite a fire
that would symbolically burn my Grandmother’s apartment
to the ground,
sparing our flesh but not our collective psychosis.
The ashes whisking through the air,
the scorched corners of old Christmas cards,
charred photos of holidays past,
all memories of assorted dysfunction, gone
…like our sanity,
now replaced with denial,
dementia,
and my own decisive determination
that it may as well have happened then
because it would have happened sooner or later
anyway.
Sparrow Mother
So coldhearted
and void of conscience
are they who steal the eggs
from your nest,
leaving you crying hopelessly
for their return,
which will not happen,
because many are you;
sparrow mothers,
having to simply move on
with a punctured soul
yet a will of iron
which you cling to
like a raft
constructed from the slats of compulsion
to overcome
to triumph over the arduous elements
that are the mantra of the wild,
because mourning lasts only so long,
and there are so many tears that can stream down your beak
before a tree is born of the moisture;
a new home to house your new nest,
wherein your freshly laid little ones
will reside under you with warmed innocence
before facing the cold realities
which you know well
and will teach them
to defy.
The Perpetual Rainbow
Dorothy is told that she is ill
and must take a pill,
This one after that one,
before that one and after this one;
The White every 3 hours,
the Blue every 4,
The Yellow on Tuesday and Thursday,
the Green on Friday,
Before a meal,
…and after.
And if she can’t eat,
she must take the Pink.
And if she can’t sleep,
the Gray.
And if she can’t speak, see or swallow,
Both,
but not after the Yellow
or before the Green.
And if she forgets to remember,
the Orange.
And if she dare mentions homeopathy,
the Tri-Color horse tablet
followed by a doctor-prescribed glass of –
“It’s either this or death.”
Daniel Damiano
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