Thursday, August 31, 2023: John Grey's "In Greenwich Village"

By




John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review,  and Sheepshead Review. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and  Memory Outside The Head, are available through Amazon. Grey has work forthcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and California Quarterly.


In Greenwich Village


Away from grid smoke

and subway rumble,

I find chess players

in Washington Square,

bongo players drumming up a beat

I first heard many years ago,

a guy strumming a guitar

with cap at his feet,

and pigeons…

so many pigeons,

so much pigeon droppings.

I drink coffee

in a downstairs café,

nibble the glaze

off a stale donut,

look around at the clientele,

aging bohemians mostly,

paying for java

out of their social security checks.

Then I stroll the narrow streets,

am constantly reminded

how far the world has come

from this neighborhood’s heyday.

The last record store is boarded up.

The bookstore window

offers Marxist tracts dirt cheap.

What were once clubs

are now bars.

A scattering of tourists sit inside,

their disappointed faces

staring at a faded Dylan poster,

a Fugs album sleeve pinned to the wall.

Sadly, the past is locked and bolted.

It won’t let anyone back in.


© copyright 2023 John Grey

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kevin Patrick Sullivan's poems "Camels" and "Surviving the 405 Long Beach Freeway and the Process to Cardiac Clearance"

By
Image
  Kevin Patrick Sullivan’s books include, First Sight, The Space Between Things , Unimpaired and a number of chapbooks .  His poems are in Solo , Hummingbird , Askew , Lummox , Miramar , and Spillway among  other journals and anthologies. He Co-Founded and ran Corners of the Mouth at Linnaea’s Café, a monthly of featured and open readings for 35 years, Co-editor of Corners of the Mouth A Celebration of Thirty Years at the Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival. Poet Laureate Emeritus of San Luis Obispo and the Co-founder/Curator of the Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival since 1984. Camels Three legs Two humps One pyramid shaped And two flat heads What a wicked sense of humor One hump or two The sand man has You barely notice his red eyes Guiding you through this desert Of sleep this daydream Of travel                      *after the intaglio by Anne Jenkins   Surviving The 405 Long Beach Freeway And The Process to Cardiac Clearance  I saw my primary doctor on Wednesday who set
Read more

Call For Submissions: Poetry, Essays, Fiction, and Art

By
Image
Good morning! I hope your 2022 is going better than your 2021, 2020, etc. After two years of what feels like a standstill, the world is moving forward, and in many cases, taking the opportunity to travel to places and countries never before visited, or imagined. Dashboard Horus wants to showcase your best travel poetry, fiction, essays, and art. It can be a photo of the Eiffel Tower, a story about traveling to Mars, or a poem about a train ride to Kyoto. Real, or imagined. We accept submissions on a rolling basis and will nominate for Pushcart, and Best of The Net. Guidelines Note: historically, travel writing comes with social commentary (think Joseph Campbell, or Jonathan Swift). However, any writing that contains racist tropes, hate speech, or a whiff of totalitarian leanings will NOT be considered for publication.  Send your submissions to: marielecrivainpd@gmail.com. Poetry: Two poems, no more than 100 lines combined. We accept all poetry forms, and experimental forms are always
Read more

Thursday, April 4, 2023: Two poems and artwork by Ann Tweedy

By
Image
Ann Tweedy's first full-length book, The Body's Alphabet , was published by Headmistress Press in 2016. It earned a Bisexual Book Award in Poetry and was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks, Beleaguered Oases, White Out , and A Registry of Survival . Her poems have appeared in R attle, Literary Mama, Clackamas Literary Review, Naugatuck River Review , and many other places, and she has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the NetAwards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. She currently teaches at University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law. Read more about her at www.anntweedy.com. Axis I remember how it was to be strung along a highway that held all my aspirations– for fifteen years rooted at different points in that zooming, crawling, 1,400-mile frenzy, always within an easy drive to the magnificent, unthinkable coast.
Read more