The Brooklyn Rail

from SUBWAY POEMS

12-13-12

A Paul Auster Moment

The woman sitting across from me
on the F train to Manhattan
is writing in a small notebook
the same size as mine.
I wonder if she has just written
this last sentence in her notebook
with a single word changed:
The man sitting across from me
on the F train to Manhattan
is writing in a small notebook
the same size as mine.
I wonder if he has just written
this last sentence in his notebook
with a single word changed:
The woman sitting across from me
on the F train to Manhattan
is writing in a small notebook
the same size as mine.
I wonder if she has just written
this last sentence in her notebook
with a single word changed….

3-21-13

When one train runs alongside another underground,
the people in the other train seem so unguarded,
transcendently unguarded,
and yet, surely, they’re no more nor less unguarded
than they would be if I didn’t see them.
It is the observer who makes us seem unguarded.

10-9-13

An Andy Warhol lookalike sits across from me.
His face has been smoothed by plastic surgery.
His hair is exactly like Andy Warhol’s,
lank, but still sandy,
not yet arrived at its final white.

Andy Warhol doesn’t look happy.
He might be unhappy because he isn’t Andy Warhol,
however much he tries.

His hands are bright red.
His big hands, his long fingers, are bright red.
Andy Warhol’s hands weren’t like that.
If his hands had been like that,
he wouldn’t have been Andy Warhol.

2-19-14

Never look to see which train is coming,
because if it’s a G,
it will break your heart,
but if you hadn’t looked,
your heart would remain whole,
even unshaven,
like Frank O’Hara’s heart.

3-30-14

Have you ever walked into a subway station
like this one, Lex Av and 63 St.,
that’s been under reconstruction for years?
It was under reconstruction 3 years ago
when my mother started dying near here
in New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
It was under reconstruction 2 years ago
when my mother died near here in a hospice.
How many people’s mothers
have been dying and died near here
while this station has been under reconstruction?
It’s a crummy place to wait
whether your mother is dying or not—
though not so bad a place tonight,
a rainy Sunday night at the end of time.

4-11-14

The verbal proposition
“This is the non-universe”
appears in my mind
as I wade through people
in the drab corridor
leading to the turnstiles.
What do I mean by that?
That the me is real,
The not-me unreal?
Remember all those terms?
Me/Not Me, Self/Other,
Man/Nature, Mind/Matter,
Soul/Body, Spirit/Material.
This makes me want to use
my college notebooks
like Bernadette Mayer did
in Eruditio Ex Memoria.

6-23-14

Today is the day after yesterday.
Blue, but not as blue, hotter,
the perfect beach day.
The day after yesterday
is often the perfect beach day.

11-10-15

I just sat next to a homeless guy.
That Russian girl hates him.
You can see it in her eyes,
her mouth, her eye makeup,
her swept-back brown hair.

What will it be like—
a whole ride with this smell?
We shall see, we shall see.

On his cart, a sign reads:
REPENT
JUDGMENT
IS COMING

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a simulated male voice says over the PA system,
“this is an important message from the New York City Police Department.”
An expression of disgust crosses the homeless man’s face—
what does the NYPD’s message have to do with him?
For that matter, what does any of this have to do with me?
It’s sad when you’re mentally ill and homeless.
It’s less sad when you’re mentally ill and respectable.

3-1-16

The Vanishing Point

It’s easy to think
there’s something desirable
about a vanishing point,
especially when the sky is blue
the way it’s blue,
and the clouds are white
the way they’re white.

I’ve been to the vanishing point here.
It’s farther south on 7th Ave.,
where Park Slope
shades into Sunset Park.

At this very second,
I see a long line of red lights
on the way to the vanishing point.
What more do you need to know
about this disappointing Earth?

There’s a string of red lights
as far as the eye can see
on the way to the vanishing point.
If you’re heading toward the vanishing point,
you are stopped now.

And if time were to stop now,
you would be stopped forever
at a red light on the way
to a vanishing point.
That is not particularly desirable.

If you stop to think about it,
why would a vanishing point
ever be desirable?
What is desirable about vanishing?

3-29-16

A high percentage of the people
on 7^th Ave. are zombies
at 11 a.m. on the Tuesday
after Easter and Passover.
Does this mean I’m a zombie?
What is a zombie anyway?
A zombie is a walking dead person.
But I’m not walking, I’m running
for a train—and just make it!

A young policeman and police lady
talk at the front of the front car.
They put an initial damper on things
until I listen to their banter.
Neither are apparently married.
I wonder if they’re flirting with each other.
I wonder what their assignment is.
The cop in me, the cop in my heart,
wonders what the real cops’ assignment is,
as if it matters….

There are zombies out today,
but not in this subway car.
Perhaps police scare away zombies,
or perhaps zombies don’t take the subway,
they prefer to be above ground,
where they so rarely get to be.