A LITTLE POETRY

Last summer, I entered a poem I wrote in the 2007 Writers Digest Competition. Although I rarely write poetry, for some reason I had an urge to submit one. The winners would not be announced until the fall, and during that time I moved from Brooklyn to Harlem. Well, upon surfing the Internet the other day, I discovered that I had in fact been a finalist and was in the Writers Digest published book. I didn't know this of course, because I had forgotten all about the entry and because the notification had been sent to my old address. So, out of 15,000 entries, I placed 44th (they choose 100 entries from each category). So, it's not the number one spot but hey, beggars can't be choosers and for someone who is not a poet, that's not too shabby. Any way, here it is for your poetry reading pleasure.


Central Park

Some days New York smells like Jamaica
from the street vendors blackening kebabs
on busy corners.
Reminding me that time doesn’t exist unless we let it.
as I pass a pub, it smells of England.
The stale musty aroma
mixed with the longing for a bitter dark ale to touch
my lips, brings me back to earth for a moment of
just
being.
The window of the 10th floor office bathroom
is always open, and the only sounds it allows are the slight breeze
and gentle humming of construction workers below.
Their skin is
a healthy tan from days in the sun.
One of them always sitting on a pile of broken concrete,
sandwich and soda in hand as droplets
of sweat bead down his forehead.
Although surrounded by
madness,
there are moments of real existence,
They are brief mirrors of calm, often passed by on
our quest to emptiness, and are insignificant yet immortal.
Take notice, but let them be.