Morgan Michaels Poems

Work come down to
Smoke and ash?
I'm so sorry.
One of these days, begin again-
...

Hey big ole fly flipped in last night
as we futzed on the patio
Doors ajar,
in flew the fly
...

Heading south, the plane overshot the harbor, banked and flew to sea a hundred miles or so- all in the span of minutes. Then, it banked once more and flew back with new purpose, til, descending in earnest, everyone felt its new, downward slope and startled to the clunk of the wheel gear descending and the clunk of the wing flaps plating out.Everyone swallowed hard and Langley looked 'round and spotted Charlie in the crowd, twenty rows or so back. He smiled wanly and waved.

In the sunlight ahead, past a network of runways, they could see the glint of the terminal. Lower and lower sank the plane and the runway rose faster and faster until the solid white strip broke up into dashes and the plane's shadow loomed large beside them. Then, the nose wheel touched down with a bump and a shiver, followed by the cabin wheels and the plane settled flat. Suddenly, the wing flaps were up and slowing them with a roar. Mountains and lawns flew by quickly then less quickly, then more and more slowly, until soon the plane was taxi-ing toward the terminal at an understandable clip.Everyone clapped and sighed and the cabin became loud with the sound of people collecting themselves and seat belts unbuckling and some passengers jumped up and popped their overheads.
...

It was cool on the roof- breezy and empty.

They got off the elevator at the 17th floor and walked down a hall
to a door marked 'Roof Garden'. Beyond the door was a stairway with steps leading up to a landing. More steps led to another door that opened on the roof garden, its floor a maze of topiary under the sky. The roof was picketed round by a sort of parapet, tall enough to rest your elbows on. The building stood in mid-Village, surrounded by blocks of low, dark old neighborhoods. Across from it in three of four directions, rose the lit-up spires of the famous sky-scrapers. To the north, was the Empire State, awash in irid light. As was the Chrysler, to the east. Unimpressed, the Metropolitan Life Building sported traditional red, white and blue. Above loomed a sky colored two parts ash, one part rust, almost close enough to touch.There were no stars. To west, the river, a mirror of watery chroma, ran unhurriedly to sea. Snakily, it upheld the division between New York and Hoboken.
...

'I can't leave the past behind
tho' I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried
for the past was a pretty good ride
that I cannot put out of my mind.
...

It was bedtime, I was starving.
What to eat?
In the cupboard was a box of dreams.
'Dreams', it said, plainly, and beneath,
...

When it got dark the fireworks started for real, shot from a barge parked down-stream you couldn't see: red, green, blue, one after another after another. Overhead the fiery tendrils trailed down, vanishing before they hit ground, while their acrid smell drifted slowly over the flood. More people turned up and soon there was a crowd broken into chatty groups, each guarding its sovereignty.

Donnie thought the hammock a great place to watch the show from and he was right, he decided, though you needed to sit up to see over the wall. Somebody from California handed him a plastic cup half- filled with cava and suddenly there were two people rumbling in the hammock, than three, then two again. Alone, finally, Donnie looked around for his friends. Twenty feet off stood Mat, talking to an older man with a goatee. The goatee bobbed palely in the dark as he waggled a forefinger for emphasis.
...