New York City

Poem by W Roger Carlisle

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Massive systems of water pipes, sewers, steam pipes, gas mains,
electrical wires, railroad tracks, collective excrement,
underworld elements linking shadows, drives and dreams.
We all become urban subjects, rushing, pushing, walking,
striving to be separate and together. Living in a faster
tempo and temper, greater tension, increased irritability.

A million men and women
come charging onto Manhattan each
weekday morning, compressing
all life, all races and breeds,
into a small island while adding music
like the chant of bees.

The city is the crucible of our being,
the inviolable center, the symmetry,
the balance, the sanctuary, the marriage
of heaven and earth, the end of our wandering,
the first place we could belong, the story we make of
our lives. We must stand in the presence of its mystery.

At every intersection I push a button to cross the street.
In every block or two there is a grocery store, a food wagon,
a newsstand, a shoeshine shack, a dry cleaner, a laundry,
a delicatessen, a flower shop, a movie house, a stationer,
a tailor, a drugstore, a garage, a tearoom, a saloon,
a hardware store, a liquor store, a shoe-repair shop.

I join the rushing herd, imagining stories of hope
behind every window, people dining together, reading,
working, making love, creating their lives.
A man shot and killed his wife in a fit of jealousy.
A cornice or contour stone falls every year killing some citizen.

Hysteria, inadequate schools, crowded playgrounds,
unimproved highways, bridges that are bottlenecks,
smog and dirty air are mere distractions compared to the
sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty,
immense, and bigger than myself.

The city will seduce me subtly, imperceptibly, forcefully,
while I rush and react, asleep in my perpetual trance.
It’s as if some soulless machine has made us.
Instead of being religious we become urban.

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W Roger Carlisle is a 75-year-old, semi-retired physician. He currently volunteers and works in a free medical clinic for patients living in poverty. He is on a journey of returning home to better understand himself through poetry. He hopes he is becoming more humble in the process.