Welcome to poetryvlog.com
A weekly video reading of poetry by the poet.

Is it Ditmar’s Boulevard or that light at Eighty-first Street
littered with used condoms, fading parking summonses, soiled sanitary napkins
pencils without paper on the sidewalk where dogs sniff
incoming mail, and visitors who bring in contraband
hidden in the body’s recesses each dog pokes a nose at?

Is it Marine Park or the airport that is named for Fiorello
who read Sunday Comics on the radio to people in tenements?
Is it the bridge that spans Rio Oriente, East River with concertina wire
razor points circling any handhold or the walls that forbid
guards try their old, “make the alarm go off like it is detecting something” routine,
so he can stick his hands in pockets, under shirts, into pants, socks, bootheels, hatbands
at visitor’s gate the bus takes us to C-95 where that chapel
serves writers who memorized their Hip-Hop poetry,

Rap across the pews in Spanish, French, and Haitian Patois
each sound from a resident who writes their life story

Rhymes ‘Wife’ with ‘Life’  and  ‘Feel’ with ‘ Peel’  and ‘Die’ with ‘Sty’
Riker’s used to be a garbage dump, the prisoners tell me…

Not too much has changed…only enough to remain the same.

home

Copyright ©2006. Poetryvlog.com. All rights reserved.