Sparrow

Doors

My Earth Day

We were all terribly sorry we’d made the earth pay for our pleasure these last 200 years. We had a fear-taste in our mouths. Maybe the earth is preparing revenge. In comic books, an exposure to toxicity creates superpowered heroes, but in this world we are not so lucky.

The Park This Week

“This must be the utmost high point in the history of Tompkins Square Park,” I told Jim Brodie, coming back from a poetry reading three weeks ago.

Best Of The 11th Street Ruse

Everyone says New Yorkers are cruel (at least New Yorkers say that — it’s part of our Self-Love), but the fact we’re suffering Benevolence Burnout shows we must’ve had some.

For Arlene

A good friend of mine died, of AIDS, a few months back. I went to her, in the hospital, the day before she passed. This was near Boston, in a suburb.

Songs Of Dawn

The Homeless

I was just rousted off the floor of Grand Central Station by two cops, one of each race. It didn’t occur to me to say, “But I’m waiting for the train to Poughkeepsie!”

Sam

There was a scarecrow named Sam. He lived in a field of corn, with no shelter from the sun and snow. He wore an old felt hat — gray — and a faded black suit jacket.

The Heavenly Smile Studio

Eddie thought. “And does The Man With No Head ever go to the photographer?” “Yes.” “And when the photographer asks him to smile?” “He spreads his arms.”

My Life In Marketing Research

When I returned from Denver to Manhattan last fall I needed a job. My first idea was to be one of those guys who sit on boxes outside discount stores on Dyckman Street watching that no one steals plastic coat hangers — but all those positions were filled. My next plan was to be Santa Claus.