Trying to mean uptown

Spaceport Chirstopher walks down a beat-up street
to a bar where they mean uptown, they try uptown
and they just don't get it right. The time is perfect
for the painful salute of glass on glass, for the crushing
of the pill that ruins the time-release mechanism
of his hate. It comes all at once, and he is like a lily
going to war, uptown. Brought down like the many
sparks that a repairman collects in his toolbox.
He goes from light to neon light, and wherever
an "s" sputters or an "f" has gone right out,
he slips a spark back into the tube. It lights
up the uptown. The landing lights in Spaceport
Christopher are where the starships come back
home. Their motors click from full flush to a mild
hum; they are home again, Thanksgiving dinner.
The unwanted second plate. Christopher thanks
you for the attention, buttons up his coat, unbuttons
it again as soon as the cold hits. It is hot and uptown
in this bar, and I have just seen Christopher slide down
his chair. Under the table he's just garments. Poor fool.
In my waking life I would help him. Here I sit, stare, hum
"uptown, uptown," while he lets his hate keep hurting him.
posted by Adam at 12:16 AM [edit]

Letter to National Public Radio

Dear "Morning Edition",

Thank you for airing Ellen Friedman's commentary this morning (December 4) about her dissent against the current war in Afghanistan. I want to reassure Ms. Friedman that she is not alone in questioning the bombing of, as she phrased it, one of the world's poorest countries by one of the world's richest.

I thank her for mentioning the World Court as an alternative framework in which we might have brought terrorists to justice while strengthening the rule of law world-wide, and even laying the groundwork for how future terror and war crimes will be prosecuted. Perhaps massive food aid, without any bombs whatsoever, could have empowered the Afghan people to acheive the same results--the lifted veils and humming radios--that have recently come to us at the cost of innocent lives (not to mention all the lives that will be lost to starvation this winter).

Ms. Friedman should know that her words did not fall soundlessly. Her courage in speaking out has inspired me, and I hope others along with me, to lift my own voice a little louder.

Adam Rosenblatt
Austin, TX

posted by Adam at 10:52 AM [edit]

Another New Hampshire

You laugh at the granite walls that make both sides highway
and press the pedal down atomic, we are in such a rush
to get to a place we've already been, so long it's been
since we've been to a place we've already been.
I might've gone, on a family plane flight, and you might've
gone in a car to a concert. But we haven't gone, not for
a long time now, not to New Hampshire. So drive like you
mean it for once, you always said I should learn stick-shift
but I didn't care enough, not when not driving left my hands free
to hike you. I was always trying to reach the top without falling.
You laugh at the granite walls that make both sides highway
and press the pedal down atomic, I am in such a rush
Can't you see I'm trying to get to New Hampshire in time for all our snow?
posted by Adam at 12:22 AM [edit]

The thinking cell

On the movie screen
As they are tucking you in
All the locusts and the passengers
In this inverted and uncrowded city

You find a heart on the ground
A lump, a sugarcube too soon
And pocket it to go
As you turn past the library
That is always on fire

I return to windows to tell you this: what you have taken
No one ever gives back. What you have seen you may never
See again. The widowers in the park unroll slowly the newspapers
From their sleeves. No one knows the secrets of their loves, the specifics
That made this marriage not that marriage, this trick with the apron-strings
Become later a long silent cry of grief. And you walk by thinking of chess.

On the ground it's making telephone calls to passersby
It beats, no one hears, the ground is shaking
The hand that comes and puts out the lights
The slow counting of revenue at the end of the day

On the countless Sundays you promised me
In the immense shade of winter noon
Grackling at the grackles to make them fly
Standing in parking lots because it's more important

Promise them again, mean it this time. The burns are turning back to books
As you let them slide from your ruby lips. The waiters in their cars, white t-shirt on
And collared shirt hanging from the back, make time move more slowly as the eye
Follows them. It's because they don't want to arrive at work. It's because they smoke.

On a bridge in a skipping town where the water shines all the lies back at the teeth of the liars
And the missile men sell their wares door-to-door while the shoes are more important than the feet
I look up and send a blimp to you, you send it back--the air is gone from it--and leave blimp-shell

Beating like an aorta amongst the aching feet on the concrete city street
posted by Adam at 10:49 PM [edit]