On the Get-on - Get-off bus
a tour guide discusses
the grid system
as original municipal sin:
“They should have set the streets
at angles of the equinox
to the solstice and back
in diamond shaped ‘blocks’
so sunlight could shine on the pavement
and you could build as high as you please
without shadows
from the Cloisters
south to the oysters”
On a weekend evening
at the corner of Katz's Deli
a stereotype outside the door
blocks anybody from going in
before her
”There's no room for you” she'll say
”they're taking names / they're not taking names”
”there's no line / this is the line”
”I'm a bouncer / everybody but my son Reuben is a crasher”
The Knicks correct their name
”Nix" it will be -
dialect for "nothing at all"
and no-one will see their spectators
because there will be none
At the Battery, a thin man in shorts mutters:
“I'm going to skip Waterloo next time”
”that was my downfall “
”the rebels can have it
and I'll just keep everything else”
In Queens a father asks his son
“What sound does a rubber airplane make when it crashes?”
and the son says
”Boeing - Boeing - Boeing”
but the father said “No - no
it’s a Euro-Bus - a Euro-bus
because no pilot is better
than a bus driver”
A sign at the Staten Ferry explains:
”Now is on a rolling schedule to then
but when now reaches then somehow…
then that then will start all over again
as a new now.