When I Was in New York

by Gary Zarr

Overview

A collection of poems and prose from the last decade, When I Was in New York expresses the author's experiences of love, loss, despair, renewal, memory, visions -- voyages going to and fro within himself, and outside in the world. With the writer’s home city of New York as background, the book contains three bundles of work – Desire Paths, How Love Goes, and When I Was in New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467037464
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	11/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	212
File size:	566 KB

Read an Excerpt

When I Was in New York

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By Gary Zarr

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Gary Zarr
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4670-3744-0

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Chapter One

    Desire Paths


    In a noisy new bar
    when you recited
    Loving-kindness Meditation
    you spoke the line,
    "May I be well,"
    and you wept silently, gently.
    Then the downpour cleansed us
    as we ran as fast as we could
    laughing to get safely home.


    Disease

    disease is
    being alive
    in mysterious ways
    that spin
    beyond
    our control
    knowing
    past where we can
    ever be


    Maples

    From the porch I watch
    two immense maples
    side by side,
    one green, full
    waving in the late
    summer sun.
    The other broken,
    skeletal
    just about dead in the
    evening breeze.
    Two maples rustle.
    The longer I gaze
    the more they look the
    same.


    Sleepless

    Nightingale and me
    sleepless tonight.
    The cat purrs on the pillow,
    the world vibrates darkness.
    Outside freezing, clear.
    Restless inside
    lit with a single candle,
    a laptop screen, dreams.


    Porch Moon

    I watch the moon pass
    between two dark trees
    in the cold
    with her
    on the porch.
    It dawns on me again
    that we are meant to be parted.
    As we love
    we are each taken away.


    Tulips

    Even if you stared
    forever
    you wouldn't
    be
    able
    to see
    the flaming red tulips
    with yellow and black streaks inside
    silently swoop, sway
    slow motion
    like drooping graceful swans
    inevitably
    pulled
    earthward.


    Call

    I'll see you
    in a little bit.
    My phone's
    about to die.


    Night

    I wanted night to go
    where I couldn't see it anymore
    feel it anymore.
    I wanted darkness to vanish
    like an unseen ocean
    in breezes blowing from God knows where.
    The paperback on the small plastic table
    silently flips open, closes.
    Alone with a few wayward, lost stars,
    I wonder if there is an end to pain.
    I see that your death will arrive
    quietly in flurries
    barely discernable flakes of doom
    a storm that buries us with sleepy white cat paws
    imperceptibly tickling our faces
    till the drifts pile too high
    for us to breathe or kiss any more.
    No one will ever hear us sing, our final cries.
    Our way of playing with this pulsing world will cease
    and every single thing will simply stop for you and me.
    There will be no hope of melting the unyielding walls of icy snow
    which silently bury our fiery world.
    And even my last burning tears of defiance
    will freeze to stone in my wide-open, starry yearning eyes.


    Harmony

    and it was all
    I was able to see
    this devastating scene
    unfolds
    my everlasting
    stormy harmony


    New England Getaway

    Nothing must be left unsaid my love
    not now, not at this sacred time
    not when monsters obscure the sun
    and dark birds screech over cornfields
    and frightened kids are yanked down streets
    into sealed rooms where they don't want to go.
    We must hold each other's hands tight,
    walk this serious path
    yet still play around with joy
    determined to mine each moment
    to learn, to love, content.
    You said, "I'm going to have wine for dinner, Gar,
    even though I said I wouldn't."
    And then, "I don't think we'll come back again
    because we've done everything we can here."
    I knew you were right
    as I turned the air conditioner up a notch
    and dressed for dinner while you showered.
    I hid under the covers in the pale yellow room,
    thought about the mountains
    and the lakes we passed that morning.
    Even though you usually played navigator
    you offered to drive because you said I looked tired.
    We never did find the magic country road from last year
    but instead drove a new one with wild flowers,
    square brick buildings by running rivers,
    shivering ponds with bobbing flowers and egrets.
    My legs warmed in bed, I heard the shower stop.
    I knew you were toweling your body dry.
    Yesterday you showed me the scar on your belly.
    You wanted me to feel the knotted cord
    beneath your pale skin on the edges of the smiling incision.
    The falling sun darkens the greens
    in the trees through the blinds.
    You emerge from the bathroom shining
    in your happy blue flower sun dress.
    And as you hum and comb your hair
    I wonder where we go from here.


    Severe Weather

    "It's a snow bomb."
    Giant red snowflakes
    swirl around my head.
    Bitter cold realization.

    A severe weather pattern.
    Dazed, crash through a battered gray door.
    Damp shivering alone.
    Huddle on cement steps.

    The howling came too fast.
    Silent scarlet blizzard
    biting direct—inescapable.
    Inside finally we understand
    "We may not make it out alive."


    Ferry Ride

    My hands rested on the loose, moving timbers.
    The fence, thick as trees, seemed like a pier.
    You stood to my right.
    We may have held hands.
    We're nearing the island, I thought but didn't say,
    as the busy, growing town drew close to our ferry,
    which stretched as large as a football field,
    flat, so wide I couldn't see far enough to find its edges,
    filled with hundreds of people, all without faces.
    I didn't want to have to leave you.
    I didn't want to have to leave you there.
    The thud of arrival—we shuddered, and then we docked.
    "I don't want this to be! I don't want this to happen!"
    I shouted like a child although I didn't make a sound.
    I pulled you close, pushed my face into your bomber jacket.
    There was salt too, spray from the sea, my tears,
    I'm not sure what else.


    Half Asleep

    Gray winter morning.
    Infinite fingers of cold rain
    play the air conditioner,
    syncopate the window sill
    with unpredictable rhythms.
    Overhead the wide fan whirs backup.
    I'm tumbling silently back asleep.
    A bird far off calls.


    Coffee

    Who knew that our love would
    come to rest in the coffee
    this morning the sound
    of percolating water
    bubbling in the kitchen
    where the strange potted plant
    we gave up for dead
    flowers
    white in early spring
    for the two of us
    beaming like small kids.


    Christmas Tree

    Beautiful tree
    sorrowful tree
    tree we decorated
    and adored so.
    Where are you going
    shimmering blue and red
    green and yellow
    colored with such sadness?


    For Jackie Boy

    Even the funniest
    most furious
    yield
    eventually
    give in
    like children
    after dinner
    at dusk
    lie down
    after the day's adventures
    relax
    despite themselves
    they do
    finally
    lie down
    turn over
    rest
    and sleep
    rest
    go somewhere
    far away
    and that's okay.
    It's okay
    Jackie Boy.
    It's okay
    to let yourself
    rest.


    Delirious Love

    I understand now
    what an immense journey
    it can be from this side
    of the coffee table
    to the other.
    Feverish, she sits in her pale blue nightgown
    on the edge of the couch
    peeling a Clementine,
    asks sweetly, "Want some?"
    I am with you now my dear
    though you don't know
    who I am.
    Later under the covers,
    the year pyrotechnically ending,
    your over-heated hand,
    moist forehead,
    you do
    seem
    to know
    me.
    Maybe
    you
    recognize
    me.
    You know me.
    You know me.


    Watch

    I raise it now
    the significance of this watch
    which without my left wrist
    warm and flexible
    will it end up on a table or a shelf
    in a drawer or a box
    crammed with other forlorn objects
    that do not possess owners.
    Today this watch is labeled "mine"
    but inevitably, truly,
    it belongs to no one at all.
    And neither do I really.


    Scarcity

    Every
    thing
    must be
    considered
    in light
    of scarcity.


    Touch Me

    When they come
    to touch me
    they always wear latex gloves
    or else pat me through blankets
    so when I felt your naked fingers
    under the covers
    touch me
    my skin reminded me
    that I was still a woman.


    Christmas Prayer

    There's a calmness in the Christmas tree this year
    a stillness glitters with the magic of the woods
    that quiet, hidden, silent cold place under forest trees
    where the snow's dark night blue
    where my footfalls pray
    for better times
    as they sink as far as they can go
    to reach the stars.


    Underwater Man

    Slowly
    I let waves
    cover me
    completely
    knowing I can
    still
    breathe under water
    a gift I received
    before I was ever born.


    Thinning the Herd

    The scruffy tan lion crouches in the bush
    not far from the nervous, dancing herd of zebra
    twitching and drinking beside the gazelles at the pool.
    I'm pleased my new TV has such great reception.
    The narrator's deep voice explains
    how lions hunt with their clumsy cubs playing nearby.
    From the rising pitch of the background music
    I assume the coiled mass of muscle and bone is about to spring.
    The panicked herd gallops away in unison
    their legs in time like a Broadway chorus line.
    Their eyes bulge at oncoming, racing, snarling death,
    as two bombs packed with claws explode into the back of an unlucky zebra.
    I turn away unable to watch
    this inevitable thinning of the herd,
    necessary perhaps in the grand scheme of nature
    to balance the planets orbiting along invisible highways.
    But not now, not for me, after a couple of beers, alone.
    You in the hospital again for an overnight stay.
    Instead, I quickly leave the room to take a piss.


    On the Bench with Her

    "It's so great to be close to the trees," you said,
    relieved, drinking in life from the earth to the tops of the branches.
    Pure white clouds floated silently east
    over the brick apartment buildings lit yellowish
    in the autumn afternoon sun with kids laughing in the playground.
    Seniors marched past, a young guy in a red jogging suit,
    kids ambled absent-mindedly home from school.
    "They cut down all the trees; they cut down all the trees,"
    an angry business woman said, though we didn't respond.
    Your hand was very warm, you didn't speak much.
    You seemed intent on gazing at what was outside
    in an inner sort of tranquil way.
    About the cavalcade of strollers and mothers and nannies,
    "Lots of babies," you commented, pulling your hood on.
    Also: "It's funny about humanity, everyone has their own story."
    after a burly woman playing a harmonica walked stray-dog-like along the Oval.
    Later upstairs, you lowered yourself slowly onto the couch.
    Puffing, you closed your eyes, exhausted by the short walk
    to the bench, which seemed like it was in another part of the world.
    My love, I also try to catch my breath from our journey so far way.


    Geese

    "Did you see the geese?" she asked,
    her eyes shining childlike.
    They flew overhead to a pond
    on a farm down the road
    in the afternoon while I took a nap.
    They floated and preened in the gray-blue water
    shivered in the pond in autumn,
    which arrives so often
    just before winter.


    Last Sunflower

    Last
    sunflower
    of summer
    where
    are you running
    in the rain?
    Lightning cracks
    cornfields and pastures
    crashes over us.
    Last
    sunflower
    of summer
    what are you thinking
    out there alone
    in the rain?
    Show me
    the secret place
    where the sun hides.
    Last sunflower
    of summer
    where
    are you running
    in the rain?


    What's Hidden Beneath the Lawn

    In the late afternoon spring sun the expanse of the lawn
    we finally finished mowing this morning slouches easy.
    Olive green rows of cut grass curve in orderly loops
    like a horizontal a terrace garden in the Andes.
    But only we know that where birds peacefully feed
    the huge wooden red barn stood years ago
    filled with car parts and broken greasy desks,
    crammed with mechanics' tools, cigars
    half-empty whiskey bottles,
    file cabinets overflowing with musty, canceled checks,
    all those Christmas presents you weren't supposed to see yet.
    That inside the red barn a huge blower used to thaw our frozen cars
    in the dead of winter.
    That the upstairs fragile, floor boards creaked
    where mysterious chicken coops were long ago.
    The thin ancient cement floor, crumbled to fine gravel underfoot,
    a cool place out of the summer heat, killer January storms,
    a protected spot to have a beer, to try to get an engine running again,
    a homely inner world of tinkering and local guys making small talk.
    You wouldn't know this part of the lawn is where the barn is buried
    and the small pond too, the one he dug when the girls were small.
    You wouldn't know except if you gazed at the grass long enough
    got lost in each blade, every secret of what used to be
    in what's disguised as an immaculately kept lawn
    beside a rambling country house.


    Burn Barrel

    The solitary burn barrel
    rusts on the lawn
    just beyond the house.
    Around its brown corroding bottom
    silly milky green weeds
    grow hopefully
    wave in the summer wind
    intertwined with disintegrating metal,
    protected by the circular barrel base
    from the inexorable
    electric mower blades
    that are surely coming.


    Country Ending

    She lays on her back smiling on the grassy hillside
    the cat beside her in the summer sun.
    Two trees tower over her.
    Shadows dance in the soft afternoon breeze.
    Sunset is not far off
    with its chorus of birds and purple clouds
    when a contented country day ends
    with a gentle sensual sigh.


    Desert Moon

    I gaze
    at the hazy moon
    in the desert
    alone
    over a truck
    racing in the night.

How Love Goes

For Gail

Comerado, I give you my hand! I give you love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Song of the Open Road Walt Whitman

I Leaving

Come gentle hearts have pity on my sighs As mournful from my breast you hear them go, To the relief they bring my life I owe Since I should die of sorrow otherwise ... La Vita Nuova Dante

I wanted to see if I was still alive, if I could be, ever. Six months after my Gail died I flew to Greece to spend two weeks with close friends, Russ Kordas and Laura Hussey, both accomplished painters, at their splendid, unpretentious rambling white-washed house on the magic ancient island, Samos.

This outcry is a series of postcards, ways of speaking to Gail because I had to, acting as if she were still traveling with me. They surged into life as I tried to tell my lost friend and lover what was happening around me, within me. When Gail was diagnosed, I promised myself I would do two things— everything possible, at any cost and anywhere in the world, to save her life; and if in the end that wasn't possible, then I would help Gail complete her beautiful life in a poetic, gentle, protected, dignified and adventurous way—just as she had lived it. After two years, it turned out the second road was the one.

When I journeyed to Samos the first time, two year's worth of pent-up suffering and 24/7 attention focused on my loving friend, exploded into words, into the world.

It was pathetic, horrible, miserable, pitiful, laughable, some might say unmanly; it was cathartic, volcanic, a bit mad as well as maddening, inescapably serious, yet utter folly.

It just happened.

I was trying to make believe Gail was on the road with me, or I actually thought she was, or maybe I was unable to be without thinking she was still beside me.

I was compelled to recount each moment and sensation of my trip to the Mediterranean, and in telling my lost love so many mundane and miraculous stories, I see I was ferociously and unconsciously fighting the inevitable forgetting that comes upon us all, no matter how strong or acute our memories and spirits.

I was summing up a story I did not want to end.

I did not want to let her go, so I just told her stories. It was that simple, I guess.

But that's how love goes, especially lost love, love ripped from your heart, blown-up love, detonated love, love burnt to a crisp by the fires of life, a life miraculous and indifferent, charmed and cursed, blessed and nothing more than a cosmic joke.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from When I Was in New York by Gary Zarr Copyright © 2011 by Gary Zarr. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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