2012-2013

 2011-2012

"My city's song"

by Arianne Lapidus 

My city yells its fury,

its confusion, its delight.

Chaos that croons a song of blind ambition

of tainted love and broken dreams.

 

Gunshots and rattling tracks

tap out the drumbeat

matching the pitter-patter of 8 million voices

who sing the harmonies of my city’s song.


My city sweats while it sings

a primal fever sweat that shakes its twisted limbs.

And in the enflamed melody,

lives a violent vocal dance.

 

My city’s song seems harsh and cruel,

grime coats all its chords.

No clear sparkle in its faded tune,

It croaks out flats and sharps.

 But,

my city’s song is beautiful,

despite its shrieks and screams.

it oozes out the sounds of love and joy.

It howls and it moans its heart.

 

                                                   -----------------------------------------------------------

"My Horizon"

 As I march rhythmically,

My feet against the cold hard pavement,

The leaves of fall being crushed beneath them.

Cool crisp air and hymns of the day to follow, dread.

 

I blink up and gaze upon my horizon,

Filled with everlasting beauty and infinite color,

A forever fleeting yet always returning

Sunrise.

 

The orange hue of the sun

Changes the way I see.

Blocked by the monstrosity of uniformity,

I see like everyone else.

 

But I March on to a different rhythm,

Toward my endless painting of utter simplicity.

My moment of microcosmic revelation.

 

And I go around the monstrosities

Instituted by them, and me.

With always more to come.

To finally gaze upon my horizon,

 

Still unintentionally looking back.

                                                            -----------------------------------------------------------

"One in a Crowd"

by Arianne Lapidus

One in a sea of muddled faces, 

in a resolute group of strangers.
He looks at me, and I at him.
And the promise in that glance,
The promise a thousand possible days 
It scares us.
So we resort to covert peeks through graffitied reflections
of the dusty mirrors of this metal box.
And the reality of our encounter 
so impersonal and brief
seems so far from the rose colored images
of what could be.
But its over now, reality returns to claim its prize
and he's gone, with all we might have been
gone with the next arriving train.

-----------------------------------------------------------


"Jazz Bar"

by Uri Rosenshine


Up on 117th there's a bar


where a man can loosen his tie over a drink



The doorframe sags


and it ain't got no name



A sunken man watches the doorway like a blind dog



The lights are dim


and the walls are stained with gin


On a Thursday night

the bowler hats and the cigarettes

and the drunkards and the suits

Come to lounge on shot glass rims

 

And in August the small room swells with heat and sweat

 

Four clumsy men sit at the lit end

and by 10 they spit a sloppy tune

 

Jazz has a stink

A kind of sweet stink

A pepper stink

 

The saxophone

makes a primal groan

 

Like an undersexed coyote

A long slow wallop

Seductive and angry

and slow

 

The drummer drops a lazy beat

It comes from some sodden beer-soaked place in his heart

It drags its feet in an ancient tap dance

 

A lady in muted red

steps to the silver mic

with a tired vitality

 

Her voice is deep and hoarse

It plows like an old workhorse

She caresses the drunken hearts

of the men leaning over their stools

 

She sings to them of youthful love

She sings to them of living easy

 

That drum taps a sweet sloppy beat

that dances slow and steady out the door

and spills with the light onto a cobbled Harlem street

 

That jazz walks a drunken walk all the way home

-----------------------------------------------------------

by Julia Delmedico


Muddied bare feet on the hot powdered precipice

They play with sticks and stones

Shifting them indifferent to if their only remains will be bones

Shift Shift

Play Play

The basics of human interaction

Held gazes

Hesitation

They looked over the vanishing point of their vast horizon

Over the vegetation

Trees entangled in their roots

Unaware of their impending doom

From those on the hot powdered precipice


They tossed those sticks around

One peering over the shoulder of the other

Held gazes

Hesitation

Muddied bare feet on the hot powdered precipice

Their soft steps


soon to


boom boom boom

 

They looked over the concrete

Bright lights so crisp clean

One over the shoulder of the other

Tossing joysticks on glowing surfaces

Fluorescent lights bright in their biotic eyes

Same movement from the hot powdered precipice

Shift shift

Play play

Held gazes

Hesitation

Divided by barren walls

Replaced by a paradigm shift and swings of the pendulum dictating the fourth dimension

Same eye coordination

Same temptation

Divided by the smooth surfaces and electromagnetic wires

Glowing lights and biotic eyes

Same movement from the precipice

Same eye coordination

Same temptation

-----------------------------------------------------------


"Across the Bench"

by Martina Cox


Across the bench

He keeps down low

His head to stare at feet,

Naked on the subway floor
Exposure none to speak.

Although only to him does he know
The secrets that he keeps-
What he really is, what he really has done,

While all others stare at his feet.

-----------------------------------------------------------


“Desire”

                          is a soft rope caught around my neck that lovingly pulls               me

towards

her.     


The sun shines in her eyes

but the moon shines back,

producing muted beams of mystery

and shadows of the truth. 

I almost want to love her

because I love to want her    

                                                                                                   because kisses down her neck

                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                     send shivers down my spine.

Her subtleties are so

enticing,

clues to a puzzle

whose solution is only a hint.

One longer strand of hair,

one questioning look,

one nail chewed down to its fingertip,

leads me to no conclusion, but

leaves me with electricity that 

numbs my nerves and mind.

Her aqua eyes a puddle

in whose muddled waters lie

reflections of the future

all thrown together into one abstract image                                                          

in which I see

                   Her smile

                   Her fire

                   Her lips

and me.

by Daniel Wittenberg


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