love is where I find it
discarded
in the street
walk / don’t walk
what I see
when
I look / turn away
now lost, now found
reflecting the light I shine
/ don’t shine
I can leave it where it lays
for someone else to find
or pluck it, pocket it, carry it where-ever I go, never let it see that light again.
(jackson heights, queens, ny)
Somewhere, lost in the back-roads of Queenz. A drawbridge. A stoplight that flashes only red, or yellow, there is no option for green. And a storm. Slow down. and Wait (for the storm to pass; you cannot outrun the storm).
(lost in the backroads of Queenz, ny)
Sometimes I think there is no housing shortage, merely a housing rift.
In the late 90s I wanted to move to Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, but I never saw apartments listed for rent. Then someone clued me in. Carroll Gardens was still an Italian enclave, with families that had been there for ages - and they wanted to keep it that way, Italian. ”For rent” notices were posted locally - in the deli, or the laundromat, so they could control not only who moved in, but who came looking. Specifically, they didn’t want Black folks, they only wanted their own folks.
I moved to Fort Greene, with the Black folks, and then Red Hook, where the Italians from Carroll Gardens used to dump the bodies back when bodies were being dumped on waterfronts in NYC.
Now, I live in what is constantly referred to as the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in the city - Jackson Heights. I see “apartment for rent” signs everywhere, hand-written and in some version of Spanish.
It’s the same as Carroll Gardens twenty years ago. People extending opportunities to their own tribe, choosing to surround themselves with people in whom they see themselves reflected. Same values, same stories, traditions, ethics, foods.
If it’s prejudice and discriminatory when middle-class folks make that choice, what is it when poor folks do it?
I wonder, did someone throw their child’s photo away? Or was a wallet stolen, cash & credit cards pocketed, while everything of real value - fortune cookie fortune from a first date, phone number you meant to call, a st. judes medal, a child’s school photo - tossed and discarded, trampled by tires & feets & paws until nothing was left but the memories.
(jackson heights, queens, ny)
One step closer to God.
Built in 1920, the Wonder Wheel’s original patent, for an “amusement apparatus” is a work of art, the finished product, a testament to Bethlehem Steel, with one car especially reserved for the ferris wheel dog.
(coney island, brooklyn, ny)
