QUEENSBORO: Even When We Know, What Do We Know?
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Voice Only
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Music Only
Lyrics
The tune is always the same.
Some of the moon has fallen to earth,
and New Yorkers are using it to build
stairs up to a temple in the sky,
and steps down to where
the subway flies or crawls
on its stomach like a rat
sniffing out a piece of cheese.
The human condition long ago
floated down the East River,
out into the harbor then out
to the Atlantic where
it was mistaken for
a Coney Island hotdog stand
released from its moorings,
unhinged from that
crowded beach of souls
searching for
a good therapist with some idea
of what might be stuffed
into those meaty cylinders,
though sometimes a dog is just a dog.
And who did bring the dog to this party?
Who owns the haunted howling
in a landscape of chimneys,
bricks shaped to contain
shelter as much as incineration.
Dreams like armor
polished to reflect
the unleashed melodies of fire,
the silent shining of ice.
We are always possessed by our surroundings.
If someone holds out the brass ring,
we're going to grab it even if it is
a crown of thorns.
Even if the latest gadgets are
nailed onto our palms,
text, images, numbers, colors,
flowing into us through the needle and the nail.
We will gaze at the intersection,
waiting for the green and red
to direct us, forward, back,
high, low, buy, sell.
We have always had our eyes
locked onto that terminal,
even when it was a view of
the ancient sky,
wind in branches swaying,
a painting appearing
for 10,000 years
in that light shooting arrows
toward the spoken walls of a cave.
Our brains and bodies
forever subterranean and
forever seeking some way
to leave this earth
with one foot staying on the floor.
The world will appear and disappear
many times before we ourselves
take that journey promised to us
even before we knew
there were eight million stories
in the naked city seeking
to clothe itself in some
slight wisdom not warm enough
to keep hands from shivering,
palms turned upward to receive
the mortal and immortal gift
of enough change to buy
a hot cup of coffee.