Freedom Tower
This city used to be
Lit by torchlight
Dusk has fallen
Deep
I am caught between
Cohabitating realities
And unsure which dream
I get to keep
They finished the
Freedom Tower
My uncle said
“They should have rebuilt it the same.”
On the avenues paper men make an indifferent show
Of disintegrating in the rain
Chorus:
I was the toast of Greenwich Village
For about two minutes, once
Glory was the price of tuition
I wrote a book about alcoholic doves
It was an elevated position
A better view to look down at us
I was supposed to learn a lesson
But I keep forgetting what it was
The romanticists loathe
These bright corners
Because they preferred privacy
While watching my friend die
They bloviate about
Complicity
And drink holy water
From each other’s pierced sides
Such is life
In the unfolding parable
I chase money to treat
Such deep resentment
I stroll these angular
Blocks alone
Like an ink-less pen
Scratching the pavement
Chorus
The future is a
Too cold day in May
With only graspable fantasy
An antidote to the news
We are fractured, we are ruled
Their sparkling communal vision
Is always due to be disabused
I’ve reached the block
With my favorite pub
And aged a little
Over a decade
I learned too late
Your finest expression of love
Were all my delusions
You so silently forgave
Chorus
Five rounds
Of rum and coke
And the Yankees
Holding off the Reds
I tell the taxi driver
To drive me past the epilogue
Because I never like knowing
How the novel ends
Oh, verticalized glass
With our reflections unkept
We slide off with the ease
Of a great promise unmet
And the cabbie doesn’t answer
When I ask about the ducks
At Central Park
Maybe he read the book
And just didn’t like that part
