You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you can’t close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.
. . . a final comfort that is small, but not in vain: The heart is the only broken instrument that will still continue to work.
blue collar, white collar, no collar
You can generally place a New York City man in one of three categories. There are the white collar finance guys, the stylish creatives and the blue collar men that sustain the every day. *Hipsters do not constitute a category. They usually fall under the white collar column. By six o’clock they strip open their white button down (Superman style) exposing suspenders and a fedora.
All of these men live in the fast paced, competitive, ego driven bubble we call Manhattan. The white collars think that leaving the island will burst the bubble. (I’m not sure if I intended that Wall St. pun, but I’m excited it worked.) The creatives are filling the bubble with entertainment and beauty — and/or recreational drugs. The blue collars are making life comfortable and building bridges into the bubble. — Or out of the bubble? Six ways of one.
If you sit at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, I’d go so far as to say that you could accurately fit every passing man into a category. 60 percent of the time, it works every time. Which brings me close to my point.
Let’s circle back to the competitive, ego driven behavior NYC men exude, not unlike a male pup spraying his territory. Who can blame them? They are not just fighting for a seat at the table, they are fighting to earn enough money to fit that table in a larger, better apartment. Over the years I have developed the ability to recognize a man’s place on the hierarchy of success.
They are strange observations, but they seem to be accurate indicators that identify the boss, the guy that wants to be the boss and the guy that is just happy to have a boss.
The boss: a tall, salt & pepper haired man with a perfectly tailored suit who happens to look awkward in pedestrian clothes. He makes a slow but considerable amount of noise as he clanks down the hall in his italian leather dress shoes and often carries a montblanc pen.
The guy that wants to be the boss: knows enough not to whistle or cat call at a woman but is mislead into thinking that showing photos of his family increase credibility or his chances of being taken seriously. He will often buy the same shoes as his boss and is unliked by many of his co-workers.
The guy that’s just happy to have a boss: generally showers twice a week, but you’d never know it and always looks great – in hopes that a great cover makes the book. He would win the award for Mr. Congeniality and has perfected the skill of always looking busy and important. He only fools the boss.
*Hipster, you’re not fooling anyone.
years ago in a hopeless place
“I want to be a lost poem in a stranger’s coat pocket, that conveys the importance of you.
To assure you of my desire, to assure you of dreams. I want all the possibilities of you in writing.
I want to give you your reflection, I want your eyes on me, I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there, and I want everything before you…
…everything before you to follow us like a trail behind me.
I want never to say goodbye to you, even on the street corner or the phone.
I want, I want so much… I’m breathless.
I want to put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket so I can sew it.
I want my words to scream through you. I want the poem not to mean that much.
And I want to contradict myself by accident, and for you to know what I mean.
I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close, I want endless days when it’s day and… nighttime never to end when it’s night.
I want all the seasons in one day. I want the sun to set before us and come up in front of us.
I want water up to our waists and to be drenched by the rain, up to our ankles with holes in our shoes.
…with holes in our shoes. I want to think your thoughts because they’re mine.
I want only what’s urgent with you.
I want to get in the way of the barriers and I want you to be a tough guy when you’re supposed to, like you do already.
…when you’re supposed to. And I want you to be tender, like you do already.
And I want us to have met for a reason and I want that reason to be important.
And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us.
I want to forget. I want to remember us.
And when you say you love me I don’t want to think you really mean New York City, and all the fun we have in it.
And I want your smile always, and your grimaces too.
I want your scar on my lips, and I want your disappointments in my heart.
I want your strength in my soul and I want your soul in my eyes.
I want to believe everything you say, and I do.
And I want you to tell me what’s best when I don’t know.
And when you’re lost I want to find you.
And when you’re weary I want to give you steeples and cathedral thoughts and coliseum dreams.
I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us… and…”
First and Ninth 