catskill mountain rain
rinsing, and rinsing again
soon I will be clear

There is a corner table at the Café Pick Me Up, made from a sewing machine cabinet. And there’s a little hinged door on the front of that cabinet, for storing bobbins and needles, I suppose. When I sit there, I put a haiku in that compartment, written at that moment on a small piece of paper. I usually never see it again. Sometimes it’s weeks before I’m at that table again.

There is sand in there and bits of grass - how that got in there I wonder. Sometimes there are gum wrappers.
Because no one cleans out the little compartment, when a poem disappears, I imagine someone liked it enough to want to take it with them. That is fine with me. The poem is a gift to whoever wants it.

The other day, I put this one in there:

Horses ride bareback
But they do not have nightmares
‘till they fall asleep

When I checked in the compartment a week or so later, I found two more little poems on the paper I put mine on. Here they are:

Gods & Mowhawks. Coffee
stained souls. All fair
creatures love at destiny’s gate.

Destiny’s sleep finds
Subtitles
Underlining the lying --
Under
One’s slumber, infinite.

I was pretty impressed.

I took those poems and left another. When I returned a few days later, that poem was gone, and another poem of sorts was there in its place:

I FOLLOWED YOU
ALL THE WAY HOME
LAST NIGHT
YOUR SO PRETTY

I never go to the Pick Me Up at night, so I assume this one was meant for someone else, someone who may have eventually found the literature intended for her. I left it in the compartment.

pristine and clean
garbage truck grinding carries
over gated walls

marigolds in the desert
so very thirsty in bed
pipe the water in

filtered, but still foul
television overspray
from the room next door

white flakes meander
barely heavier than air
old pine creaks beneath

drab summer birdie
flaunts his dusty blue jacket
bright now in a cold world

black specks on the snow
gather and wait for the call
they will hop as one

winter storm comes in
tall buildings disappear
my city gets softer

snow arrives on schedule
travelers fall behind theirs
they crash in the airport

blanket on the town
pajamas on my girlfriend
all is warm tonight

the woods have disrobed
trees prefer their nudity
in the off-season

leaf prints in the rain
part of the concrete sidewalk
now running away

thirsty houseplants watch
through the balcony window
pots filling with rain

autumn falls on the
abandoned swimming pool
scum turns to green ice

no bugs until spring
frogs in the pond burrow deep
into welcoming muck

no less than the leaves
stones in the graveyard also decay
just more slowly

she calls at eleven
it’s past my bedtime
but I’m not home

weekend together
free from the city madness
stuck inside our own

her paranoia
is utterly ungrounded
unless she reads minds

"It's a device," he said,
in the street lamp light, poking it.
"That's what it is."

possibly perfect
but too heavy to carry
I bypass the thing

certain street treasures
employ dark spells to evade
the recycling truck

autumn park people
draw together today in
the bright orange corner

office building shadow
reaches my sunny parkbench
lunch break is over

the mental challenge:
two more months of shortening days;
now hold sanity

bin full of papers
I rummage through like a rat
back issues of AdWeek!

searching for wisdom
I discover truth instead
newsstand reality

celebrity’s weight
they measure in tons
at the recycler

journey to work
not so much walking
as swimming

puddles in the day
live always against the odds
the sun is waiting

New York strangers stand
at the crossing as one
waiting for a sign

little squashed bug
your mad dash for safety
is what caught my eye

superman died today
yet dubya still struts
comic heroes live forever

the clock is shrinking
as my memory grows fat
time for a nap

in my cubicle
"please call it a workstation"
overwhelmed by beige

muses squeezed between
modules, wires and monitors
claw at my ankles

there is a doorway
glowing digital unlocked
tho tethered, I dive

autumn churns the sky
over Bryant Park
black bag sails for Rome

fan interference
at Wrigley Field
a scapegoat is born

leaves on the ground
now cast their own shadows
as trees lose theirs

October air
clears the cobwebs even
out of my brain

ten years of childhood
no, make that eight
lived over again for eighty

grass in the park
brand new sod
reborn in midtown

my bicycle lock
city fashion
accessory to crime

how many horns
honk broadway thru its day?
I only hear the first thousand

baglady bundles on her
two wheeled cart
my pockets are empty for her

dead leaf lands
on my notebook
as i wait to turn the page

cold hands write slow
as the mind clears
and the heart pounds

like a city window at eleven
old flame flickers and goes dark
she has forgotten me

two more haiku
and I can return
to my corral

autumn again?
my mind slows
as the world spins faster

October street
more leaves than trash
this month

frantic dash
in the sweeper's wake
park with the flow

peeler man hawks
on 42nd and 6th
how much for the scraps?

two lovers on phones
enjoy the park
in three different worlds

at Google today
the center of the universe
maximizers concatenate

china doll in the window
wants so badly
to lift her skirt

baby in Times Square
lies in his limo
while mommy gawks

is there milk
in the blue bottle?
Calvin Klein underpants

are you Jewish?
stranger asks.
he'll give you a blessing

sun dried worms
on the walk
crunch under my sneakers