IN SPITE OF RAIN

. . . and the pandemic weather
in spite of worries about someone
who cannot make peace with your daily absence
in spite of the mirror
which shows a strange face
with undereye bags of insomniac’s nightly
job of counting the absent stars
in spite of the man who has no access
to his own world of feelings
locked with a lost key
he finds it only in another man’s writing
in spite of blind Parkas weaving the future
so that the knots obstruct
the path to the garden
with pink camelias dropping petals
in spite of the heavy sky and lonely weather
you are toiling
trying to find
a thin path in the dark
among the old knobby twisted trees
to where a star has fallen

The jazz club with old photos of Miles and Billy
John Lin on piano
reflection of the elegant old vocalist in the antique mirror
rows of Latino and Japanese tourists
the white bass player laughs
as he plays
with a focused expression of a man coming.
“. . . When you are looking for company . . .”
I drink medicinal tasting red Campari
on ice.
“ . . . darling, don’t look for strangers!
You come to me

LIFE UNRAVELS

like a loosely knit sweater
all holes
irreparable.
Unravels
like the intestines of a young soldier
green bile streaming
from his stomach
ripped open by an exploding bullet
someplace below Kursk,
Father told his grandson, Sasha.

Catastrophe
follows catastrophe
relationships unravel
grievances pile up
where are the warriors of Troy
in shimmering armor?
Troy was the size of a village
anyway
where is the dark
color of old burgundy
blood
streaming from a young warrior’s
torn muscular shoulder
mixing with perspiration
in the loud battle?

No such theatricality.
Alas!
The doors of the theater
are shuttered
red and magenta
velvet capes
of Shakespearean
heroes
thrown on an armchair
are gathering dust.

Beauty and Love
and virtues
and muses
are either sheltering in place
or escaped far away.
Or, perhaps,
masked,
they are standing patiently
in the line to be tested.

ALONE AT NIGHT

Libido is hard to contain
Marriage for the most part
Has turned into a rotten construction
Falling apart as it ages.
In every society people look for ways
To constrain and to justify fucking.
Russia had rediscovered group sex
As with everything else
After the Western fashion died out
Forty years prior.
In my office I see forty-year-old virgins
Who have studied on the internet
the perfect way to perform a blow job.
Sexless and tense married couples
And transvestic fetishists
Jerking off in their bathrooms
In wigs and red lace bikinis
Before joining their
Catholic wives in their cold and sterile
Suburban oversized beds.
Unhappily married women
Falling asleep with their dildos
Dreaming of the husband turning
Into Cary Grant or Jeremy Irons.
Sex is something intimate
They do on their own
Alone with their infantile fantasies
Of being loved, being desired,
Being punished, being molested,
Being admired, with perfect bodies,
Devoid of shame for their lonely habits
M&Ms and chocolate bark
Consumed in the dark.
Tears running down makeup-smeared cheeks
In front of lit-by-harsh-blue-light
Bathroom mirrors.
Strangers who would never meet
in the starless night.

IN THE ABSENCE OF MAN

Wild boars and porcupines
are roaming the forests of Galilee
nature rejoices.
A man in his apartment in Kew Gardens
saw a family of raccoons
under his balcony
that he only knew
existed
but were never seen in Queens.

A sheep escaped her flock
in Portugal and grew
sixty pounds of fur
grazing in the mountains.
Journalists reported
that wolves had tried to eat her
but their teeth
could not penetrate
the fur.
This fluffy goofball posed for pictures.

The sky is abnormally blue over Broadway
as I am crossing Greene Street
white puffy clouds are
like clouds of gauze
in wards of COVID hospitals
with patients on oxygen
clinging to what is meant
for each one
as the remainder of his or her life.

Three Moirae are weaving overtime,
entangled in more threads
than they’ve ever handled.
Atropos can’t manage
cutting them alone.
They have no time to wipe
their foreheads,
take a sip of water;
sweaty and exhausted,
like ICU doctors.

POSTCARD FROM THE PAST

My beloved city,
you opened your gates to me
when I was thrown on your shores
like others
seeking your kindness
and shelter
after a disaster or an upheaval.
I learned your dangerous streets
at night
coming from work in a neighborhood
considered dangerous
to another
not much better.

In Ravenswood Projects
a young drug addict,
always high and always pregnant,
lying on the floor
of the elevator
almost nightly.
My nine-year-old
was waiting for me
in front of an old TV
getting fat on potato chips
and sweet iced tea.

New York,
you were my partner
my open and truthful lover
you showed me your catacombs
your Brighton, your Coney Island
your Bedford-Stuy
your subways
trains full of emaciated ghetto kids
high on crack
and other shit
you had me mugged
on the way to work
under the subway tracks
on the way
from the Neptune Avenue stop
to the clinic
on West Eighth Street.

You showed me
your masturbating men
in morning cars
when the rest of the working class
went uptown to work.
You showed me your
silent exhibitionists
your white loiterers
your black homeless bums
even one Hasid with payes
jerking off standing
in his satin lapserdak.
With their lonely dicks
in their slimy hands
staring across the empty car
at me on Mondays
as I was looking up
absentmindedly
from my Sunday Times.

Hieroglyphics of SOCIALSECURITYNUMBER
INS, TRAVEL PASSPORT, JBFCS,
ESS-A-BAGEL SHOP
KOSCIUSZKO BRIDGE,
PRONOUNCED KASKI-YASKO by the locals,
not suspecting this was the name of a Polish freedom fighter.

You also showed me the Village
cafés– Reggio, Dante,
Caffe dell’Artista on Greenwich Avenue
Oh, sweet ti-rami-su!
Film Forum and the Bleecker Street Cinema
The Night Porter with Charlotte Rampling playing
I had heard of it back in Moscow
and me not able to scrape up enough money
for the four-dollar ticket.
You showed me the windows of Bergdorf Goodman
and of B. Altman
with a fluffy Italian coat
the color of pine needles
the same one
I had bought on a street in Rome
for eighty bucks
a quarter of what it cost here.

I discovered for the first time in my life
that I was in a capitalist country
and I was poor.

My city,
don’t be a stranger!
Today you turned your back to me
dark, opaque, impenetrable.
Your streets are shutting the windows
of my favorite bookstores
and old cafés.
They are putting on masks
of chain pharmacies, starbucks
and capital one chase citibanks.
Strangers are walking your streets
tourists snapping soaring
skyscraper buildings
from the High Line.
Open up, you,
let me feel you again
please, touch my heart!