City Day & Night

CITY DAY & NIGHT

The world pulses through the downtown streets,
Yellow blood cells slam dance
through pot-holed corridors of style,
driven by International visages.
Buildings climb to scrape the sky
selfishly keeping the sun from the gray faces of
city-dwelling commuters

Feel the rumble through your feet
of screeching tunnel worms,
Taste the dusty hot air belched up through metal grates,
Past the homeless who recycle heat from
grate to cardboard-clad bones.

Stones have a story in my city,
The lights kick a rat-tat-tat counterpoint at night
making the bounce from street to street a party.
On blue hot nights you hear bodega front music
climbing tenement walls to mingle with the sweat soaking your T-Shirt,
You long for the illusory cool of sleep,
knowing tomorrow will be just as hot.
Maybe the Fire Dept. won’t sense the fire hydrant is open,
Maybe pick-proof locks on caps will succumb to begging and pleading,
Maybe we’ll hop the train to Rockaway Beach, yeah,
Come home itching from the sand and salt crusting clothes and skin,
Feel that slight tickle along your senses,
like a bug, crawling along the hairs of your arm?
Was that a breeze?