Lonely Diary

Daily he writes…

How quickly the vanishing,
where once shone the sun,
now only skyscraper shade.

Horse drawn wagons
once parked below tenement smiles
as rope-baskets lowered with coins
returned with apples and grapes.

Knife sharpening push carts,
their grinding wheels
ever turning razor sharp edges
made cutting cheap meat special.

Tilted fedoras patronizingly tipped
by cashmere-draped gangsters
greeted numbers-hungry tenants,
while knickers-clad children
ran their errands for pennies,
warning shop owners
they needed protection.

Then...

Came post-war-family-building,
turning wanton streets alive,
baby strollers passing
job hungry veterans eyeing
no Help Wanted signs
in slumlord heaven.

How precarious his street became,
teetering between shelter and commerce,
preservation and extinction,
wrecking ball and obstinacy.

Finally...

Housing Department placed him elsewhere.
Nice, he guessed.
Missed the old stairs though.
Squeaks,
creaks.
worn sounds and smells of history,
his special friends immortalized
in his penciled pages.

He pauses…

So little familiar comfort is left,
as the modern whoosh of elevators,
whirls of air conditioning,
and frequent ambulance sirens
stopping at the curb,
providing the lucky ones
with perhaps a final ride
to a comfort everlasting.

However…

For him and most aged diary addicts,
today will be filled with
more pages of reverie’s comforts.

He stares into the past…

How lonely the diary.