Village Thoughts

Back in the 90s a fellow literary buddy and I drove up to NYC from North Carolina to attend a Beat Generation writers' workshop honoring Jack Kerouac. I wrote the following poem while my buddy and I drank cold beers, smoked clove cigarettes, and watched the world go by in Greenwich Village from an outdoor cafe.

Village Thoughts

Buildings of masonry tainted by time,

Smells wafting freely attacking our senses,

Walking then sitting then walking some more,

Quaffing our thirst with cold beer in cafes.

Reflecting on past moments of life,

When others now gone or grown old have moved on,

Leaving the pith of life's essence to us,

Inheritors making history without notice.

Faint voices sharing Kerouac in the corner of park,

Ears straining to share a magical tale,

When one man sought quest towards a dharmic tradition,

Sunlight piercing trees, keeping dreams still alive.

Clove-scented cigarettes sweetening our lips,

Passerbuys moving along with anonymous gait,

A Yugoslavian waitress so ingenous and protected,

From pain afflicted in her so recent past.

Demonstrations to greet us with messages unfolded,

Of life's pursuit of tranquillity yet greeted by anguish,

Human emotion screaming and crying out,

For understanding in a voiceless urban canyon.

Colors and people and smells by the dozen,

French bakeries, cappuccino, punk rock at St. Marks,

Laughing at teeshirts, drowning in the braless parade,

Life's endless show weaving our shared mosaic.