the city smells like sailors
washed up on the shore,
and I wish that I could see them,
crawling in their patched shirts and bloody hands,
as they drag their old bodies through the sand.
the city was a forest once,
and where I sit, four stories up
there were birds, maybe,
or campfire smoke.
I like to sit in places so wide open
that there is nothing
between me and a planet
only the atmosphere,
and dust slipping and sliding inside of it,
just space,
the bridge between
me and Mars.
but I’m sitting in the city.
it is never dark and never quiet
and I am never alone.
I do like sleeping inside a giant hum,
a purple rumble and honk
and all kinds of snoring.
shake me out, like salt and pepper,
to sleep with these smells
and this past and this future,
a stack of history books
closing for the night,
a million musty pages
slid onto a shelf
until tomorrow.
Betsy Brown lives in New York City and studies media, culture and the arts. She is the founder of her college's literary magazine, The Minstrel, and has performed her music and poetry in many eclectic locations, including the Bowery Poetry
Club in Manhattan, the 34th Street subway station, and the Makerere University sculpture garden in Uganda.
| For the past
three years I have lived as a student on 34th Street in New York City.
Sometimes, at three in the morning when jackhammers keep me awake, I
sit on my windowsill and write poetry. This one in particular is about
my obsession with history and my love-hate relationship with the
busyness of the city. I think I love what the city was nearly as much
as what the city is, and I live to see those layers every day. Every
street is, in a way, a history book, and when I feel overwhelmed by the
noise of it all I think about the past. It makes the present even more
stimulating. |
