Where the towers were
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
Absence is its own power. I stood on the island and looked for the towers, tried to will them into view through the harbor haze, but they were not there. They would not rise, and the wound ached on. They sky was empty without them. I could not hear, I could not see, as I sometimes cannot see the face of loved ones when I close my eyes and whisper their names.
72nd St. subway station
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
Love Minus Zero/No Limit - Bob Dylan
‘A smudge on the collective unconscious’
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
“New York… when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you.”
“I’m just trying to make a smudge on the collective unconscious.”
“I cannot sing, dance or act; what else would I be but a talk show host.” - David Letterman
The man in Columbus Circle
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General, New York Photos | 1 Comment
A man was dancing without music in Columbus Circle, shuffling in half circles and talking to the sky. The wind along 59th St. was cold and he wore a hood against the chill. His eyes pointed somewhere far away. “How much does it cost?” he asked. “Who wants to know?” he answered. “How long?” he asked. “As long as it takes,” he said. He laughed and whirled in the noon day light. Some people are truly crazy, others we just can’t hear. I know a schizophrenic man who talks every day to “voices in New York.” Half the time he makes no sense but there are moments that seem profound. One day, out of the blue, he said, “The light of eternity comes from my soul.” I thought of him in Columbus Circle, looking at this man’s eyes.
The New York Stock Exchange
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
“The richest 1% of this country owns half our country’s wealth, $5 trillion. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got 90% of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own.” - Gordon Gekko, fictional character in Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie, Wall Street.
Coney Island - ‘Those sweet ice cream illusions’
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
“All the soldiers
come to Coney Island to
say farewell and kiss the sea
and die the lovely lipstick death
of cotton candy vagaries
smacked across the evening sky,
and to taste one final time
those sweet ice cream illusions
that hang like fire in the
marsmallow wind and light
the infinite chasm of longing
that cradles the American dream.
From: Farewell to Coney Island / David Blaikie
A shoe at Coney Island
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
Across the way from the Wonder Wheel, past the trash cans and hot dog eaters, beyond the tired boardwalk and the empty beach, shining in the October sun, a woman’s shoe sat on a mossy jetty at Coney Island, pointing out to sea – a story of waiting to be told, or left to imagine.
‘A Coney Island kinda girl’
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General, New York Photos | 1 Comment
” … I have found myself sitting on the boardwalk or walking barefoot on the wet sand, where the waves break on the shore line, and poetry just ran through my veins. The fluidity from with which the thoughts and language would run through me felt like an intravenous drip of uncut magic. I’ve never really tried to decipher the mystery of the sand at Coney Island. Instead, I’ve accepted it and embraced it as part of the reason why I’ll always be a Coney Island kinda girl.” - Nikki-Jo Grossman, Coney Island Examiner. — Poetry: Farewell to Coney Island - David Blaikie.
‘Since that day they wounded New York’
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under General, New York Photos | Leave a Comment
Some people say
It’s what we deserve
For sins against God
For crimes in the world
I wouldn’t know
I’m just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York
On That Day - Leonard Cohen
Central Park at 77th St.
October 19, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General, New York Photos | 1 Comment
Why are there trees I never walk under
But large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1892