We Have Ignition

Garbage trucks,
sirens,
occasional ignored screams,
nocturnal New York,
60s Vintage,
or ‘70s
or ‘80s
or…

Such echoes the calliope of early morning’s darkness
behind weathered pull-down shades,
their sepia guised reality made blue-gray,
aglow with Emerson’s 12-inch flicker-fantasia,
my Late, Late, Movie conjugal ghosts
merging undisturbed ever so smoothly
into early dawn slumber.

Time…

Like a typical Avenue C icebox,
gathering frost ever so stealthily,
maintaining just enough credence
to preserve Sunday’s awaited feast;
peas and carrots beside Grandma’s care package,
Spam ala chutney spice
with graham cracker Alaskan (something) to close.

Along Avenue C…

There were many versions of nightly anonymity,
orchestrated by the unearthly sounds of horror flicks,
of faraway beach romance groans,
the after-hours films far too cheesy to even warrant
respectable exploitation reviews.

Beneath the lids of closed eyes
such sounds screech across the pristine sparkle
of my imagined stars riding the flatulent winds
of White Castle burgers and bad coffee.

Dreams are of…

Remnants of another day spent in the vacuous unemployment struggle,
desperate to leave behind the vortex of noxious fifty-cent images
of 42nd Street cinema escapes from the sunburn of reality
awaiting yet another disappearance of light,
a nightly subway token’s round-the-world trip to home.

Always…

Exists the retreat from whirlpools of city blight,
underground trains of perpetual red-on-white-lettered exits to urban hell.

Once upon a time,
Mother soothed my ears with Jules Verne’s adventures,
Jack London’s wilds,
Aesop’s comforting fables,
hundreds of childhood nights
gladdened by Life’s almanac of wonders.

Now…

Eyes flutter,
open to the ever faithful scratch of sink roaches,
thinking they can steal what’s left,
thinking like the conspiring greed awaiting tomorrow
on the streets,
buildings,
and limousines out there.

It’s theirs to take.
Uh, huh.

Dignity.

Even an Avenue C survivalist
knows the sound of net-less hoops,
self-worth’s inner roar of silent tears
cascading over the heart
made cryingly alive by Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety
or the sight of Henry Moore’s sublimated rages in bronze.

Yes, today…

Tomorrow is here,
beyond the square-tube field of static sign-off,
anthem’s furled stars and stripes
making ready daytime cooling of vacuum tube transmission
awaiting more chip upon chip control just around the corner.

Today is anew with winter’s fresh breath of immaculate fallout,
white upon the litter of yesterday’s attempts,
vanquishing the test-pattern hiss of another sleepless night,
a silence made greater only by the vow
to give voice to the quietness.

Such…

Becomes another chance to change
today’s version of inner flame
arrested by the light of its own burning.

Yes…

As tomorrow’s everyday life and another Space-X test is launched, we must never forget there has been and will always be…

“We have ignition” within ourselves.