In The Fisted Hand Of May Poem by Jack Tricarico

On Fourteenth Street
The posters throw body parts
Into the pedestrian eye furnace
And I don't walk too close
To the newspaper stands
Or the headlines will bleed
On my shoes. If I encounter
A mud-caked Christ
On the echoing sidewalk
And he laughs like a hyena
When I genuflect
I'll believe in his gospel
Providing he doesn't make hair spray
Of equivalent value
To large tracts of land
But I don't welcome overtures
Or solicitations in public
I acknowledge the doomsday sky
Resembling a bombed city
And the swinging door
That each face throws
Into the emptiness at large

In the amniotic air
My shadow sticks where I pause
I'd opt for a floating forest
Serenaded by an oboe or flute
But it won't happen here
Grounded in pizza smell
And rush hour scream machines
Space is a cage
And the streets are magnetic

New York is a worldly city
But the present is too discrete
If you cling to a past that's too distant
You will never feel part of a crowd
The shirtless beggar who asks for a cigarette
Arouses an obscure double
Carved out of porous stone
Animated by the wind
He fell into this history
I'd give him my social security number
If it would help him to step into time
But numbers are meaningless
To those who are not linear
Lighting his cigarette
He departs into the pink rain
Of a Manhattan sunset
At least that part of him
Which is visible
'Watch out for those vapors.'
I caution him
'The manholes are ghost traps! '