New Poetry
RILEY TOWER NO. 3
2/1/05
From the sixteenth floor balcony
of Riley Tower number three
I can see the jagged planes of the city I was born in.
I see the crouching blocks of cement and iron
all around, all of these fortresses we’ve made,
attempting to guard ourselves against inevitable nature;
we are all so distant from self-sufficiency,
honing ourselves down all of our lives
into something small enough to fit somewhere.
I’m surrounded by thick men in t-shirts, their heads stuffed in baseball caps,
all smoking, hopping, rubbing their hands together,
trying to keep from freezing in this malicious wind.
These drunken poli-sci majors are talking about sex,
and I’m watching like an anthropologist, or a voyeur;
I’m smiling, admiring their strange, blundering existences:
They’re groping forward like everyone else,
whatever cloaks of confidence they shroud themselves in.
Snow flickers across the sky like static;
it lolls in mounds across parked cars,
burying now what hands may uncover tomorrow.
the balcony rail is shivering in this wind;
it’s rusted, one of its legs broken free,
and I know, regardless of what the rail is suggesting,
the drop is 16 stories.
It’s 3 a.m., and no one’s leaving yet.
beer bottles covering the surfaces,
the beautiful and smashed faces of young adults
freak-dancing to old hip hop albums;
they know no other way to escape, most of them;
they’re dropping their daytime personas, and searching for sex
like it’s a life preserver, like the rest of life is water.
The snow is coming down silently, gently;
gyrating humans are laughing inside;
I’m contemplating these crouching buildings,
the distance to the ground,
these clear sliding doors between the snow and the party.
2/1/05
From the sixteenth floor balcony
of Riley Tower number three
I can see the jagged planes of the city I was born in.
I see the crouching blocks of cement and iron
all around, all of these fortresses we’ve made,
attempting to guard ourselves against inevitable nature;
we are all so distant from self-sufficiency,
honing ourselves down all of our lives
into something small enough to fit somewhere.
I’m surrounded by thick men in t-shirts, their heads stuffed in baseball caps,
all smoking, hopping, rubbing their hands together,
trying to keep from freezing in this malicious wind.
These drunken poli-sci majors are talking about sex,
and I’m watching like an anthropologist, or a voyeur;
I’m smiling, admiring their strange, blundering existences:
They’re groping forward like everyone else,
whatever cloaks of confidence they shroud themselves in.
Snow flickers across the sky like static;
it lolls in mounds across parked cars,
burying now what hands may uncover tomorrow.
the balcony rail is shivering in this wind;
it’s rusted, one of its legs broken free,
and I know, regardless of what the rail is suggesting,
the drop is 16 stories.
It’s 3 a.m., and no one’s leaving yet.
beer bottles covering the surfaces,
the beautiful and smashed faces of young adults
freak-dancing to old hip hop albums;
they know no other way to escape, most of them;
they’re dropping their daytime personas, and searching for sex
like it’s a life preserver, like the rest of life is water.
The snow is coming down silently, gently;
gyrating humans are laughing inside;
I’m contemplating these crouching buildings,
the distance to the ground,
these clear sliding doors between the snow and the party.