The nature of Urban Romanticism

 

America begins on the corner of Tito Puente

where sneakers on telephone lines decorate

the nostalgic pavements and

neon green liquid runs through the cracks like a river

met by an exploding hydrant whose

rain beams rainbows in the

manes and hands, of skin kissed by the sun.

Skin that illustrates the

sporadic passionate bonds made

between the shades of man.

shades of people

whom share licorice on trains

whose hearts are pumped by someones love

and whose brief existence passes through this world

like a dream in the mind of a God

Green and tangerine

that’s my heart, you can find it

on a two-way street where

scripts and dreams are sold

to the woman with a gypsies blood

making wishes on pigeon feathers

and praying with sarcasm.

Praying with disparity is Luz,

whose skin is hidden under ‘perdoname mi amor”

and “I hate you“‘s

to clay that stands so firm and cold

and still, and washes her heart.

Crinkly eye smiles are my favorite kind of smiles

because they remind me of your smile

Eyes the color of weak tea are my favorite kind of eyes

because they are your eyes

says the woman who rides bicycles and boys in the park

to the man she thinks of,

every time she lays with a man that is alone.

A man that is alone,

whom rides the train alone,

who plugs his headphones into his skull

and rides the world alone.

Once when he lived in the age

where discovery and wonder came as easy as breathing

he went down to coney with sunglasses in hand

and he’d sit in the sand and count the ladybug corpses.