Every time you try to push New Yorkshe rolls on with implacable, indifferent imbecility.
Today you hoped to parse her into sharp and shiny bits:
investigate constituents of feeling for a verse
about her: see what fits; overcome the curse
of ambiguity: spread all in a fine array across an empty slate,
and therefore state, of mind – erased of doubt and inexactitude.
You took a taxi cab or two and into New York’s glue you flew,
or rather dropped and plopped and inched ahead
as if you’d rammed into a muddy bed
within which nothing was allowed.
Inside a growing cloud
of crowded immobility, you sat, stuck, in an incivility
of meaninglessness which distressed (no less) by adding freely
to the taxi fare: you’d lost whatever clarity you’d tried
to bring to bear; began to wish that you were anywhere but there.
Until you noticed you were here, which is to say, as near
as you would ever be to a deliverance.
And so you chose to pay another fee for the inevitably
mad exorbitance of daring to exist in this strange city: tipped
the cabbie pretty well, then bought a slice of pizza
(hot as hell): which burned your mouth before
you headed south on foot towards
home to write this poem.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment