For New York City - December 2001
A multi-ethnic mass of humanity
on the street; scurrying, bumping, jostling
without even a mumbled apology.
Bodies rushing everywhere; and nowhere.
People from around the world; here now
the artists and the crackpots,
the addicts and their crack-pipes,
and half-naked cowboys in Times Square.
Visitors craning their necks, looking skyward,
walking slowly along the broad sidewalks
taking countless pictures of the Big City;
holding hands tightly as if it will swallow them up!
They take in the fantasy-like glimmering
beauty filled with blazing neon signs
hiding the dark reality underneath
with their glowing sensuality.
I feel so perfectly at home here
in this place of bold, black strokes
and colorful, wildly psychedelic metaphors
here at the crossroads of the universe;
where even the wildest of dreams
can come amazingly true.
A place where I can find myself
and become lost in the crowd.
The power of this city radiates
up and down the wide Avenues of legend,
across the Streets of lore,
and through every building in between.
No place in the world can compare
to all of its glitz and glamour,
or to the always exciting hint of danger
hiding just under the surface.
The real strength of this great city
rests not in its buildings, but in its people!
It lies in their diversity and their character,
in their determination and their resolve!
It is the weird, and the wonderfully strange,
as well as the everyday normal people
that make this city what it is.
I love this City!
