Poor New York New Year…
1988 lay scattered on her streets
Like the calendar pages of a year
Thrown casually out a window
From the twenty first floor of Pain –
In the shock of a New Year,
She dilates herself from too many tears,
The autonomous reaction of too many people
With too many sorrows…
I feel her grief like the
Excruciation of a diver rising
Too quickly from the depths in an ocean
Of her streets,
My blood boiling as pressure becomes
Imbalanced, a Harlem summer night,
No food on the table, children screaming.
I walk her streets in
Traffic jam quietness,
Acquiesced with thoughts that
Her suffering will be released someday,
The gridlock of her life purged with hope.
© K. James Ribble
Thespian Drummer 