Thinking About New York (Two Poems)

coney island avenue

Daddy drugstore2

In a few days I will be in New York, my life's original setting, and there were definitely red brick buildings in it. So here's a little poem on that:

O THERE WERE BIG RED BUILDINGS SOMEWHERE IN MY CHILDHOOD by Robert Clairmont

O there were big, red buildings somewhere in my childhood and I shall

      never forget them: I cannot forget them. 

So far, far away, childhood: stir of forgotten things; sad things, dim 

      things; memories of buildings slanting to a moon....O there 

      are buildings now which bring to me my childhood.

Speaking of buildings, I am hoping to go back for another look at the 1899 building on Coney Island Avenue that was my first address. It is now owned by an African-American man named Scottie who also runs an antique store downstairs, and I've actually met him twice and talked to him about the way the neighborhood has evolved over the past fifty years.

There I am above, the last time I was on the street, pointing to my ol' homestead. My roots! Aren't you impressed? If you look closely, you can see Scottie's Antique store.

And I'll paste in one more New York poem, why not? This one is by Joyce Kilmer, written when the New York City subways were still new. It pre-dates even the photo above of my father standing in front of a Brooklyn drug store sometime in the 1930s, gleaming with whatever dreams he had and ready to take on life. (He definitely has a New York look about him...)

THE SUBWAY by Joyce Kilmer

Tired clerks, pale girls, street cleaners, business men,
Boys, priests and harlots, drunkards, students, thieves,
Each one the pleasant outer sunshine leaves;
They mingle in this stifling, loud-wheeled pen.
The gate clangs to- we stir- we sway- and then
We thunder through the dark. The long train weaves
Its gloomy way. At last above the eaves
We see awhile God's day, then night again.

Hurled through the dark- day at Manhattan Street,
The rest all night. That is my life, it seems.
Through sunless ways go my reluctant feet.
The sunlight comes in transitory gleams.
And yet the darkness makes the light more sweet,
The perfect light about me- in my dreams.