\t\t\t\t4:35 AM Thursday, October 06, 2011<\/p>\n
BROADWAY IN ASTORIA<\/p>\n
The trance jungle is
\nwilting in cubicles made of honey,
\ndomains of dismay where
\nhills of stranded grass cram
\nlifetimes into cans of daylight.<\/p>\n
Sardines and salmon,
\nstacked as pillers of dismay,
\nremind you that
\ngreatness is a fabrication,
\na pasty fantasy.<\/p>\n
Wilderness zaps past your bedroom window,
\nvrooming and zooming into the brittle, nubile night.<\/p>\n
You do not know
\nwhere you are in that
\n \trented hole
\n \t\tover which you shall
\n \t\t\tfloat for decades.<\/p>\n
You see a stranger in the mirror.
\nThe stranger sees you.
\nBoth of you step away.
\nIn separate quarters you shower and shit,
\nwelcoming the next 35 years of
\nforgettable life into the
\ncold air of theater cursing itself as
\nfailed opportunity.<\/p>\n
You think of the venom on this street,
\nthe poison and aggravation of romance and the
\nugly violence of failed love.<\/p>\n
You throw your coolness into the
\ntombs of passing strangers.<\/p>\n
Is there a calm?
\nIs there serenity?
\nYou do not ask.
\nYou do not know.
\nNo one knows,
\nnot the unread Bible or the
\nunelected politicians who
\nglower like sleepless morons in the
\ntepid Astoria nights where
\nfreedom reigns in the
\nbedrooms of the uninspected.<\/p>\n
The surface of the East River breathes with the
\nbellies of the unknown, tipping its fat hand with the
\nmoneyed wink of forgotten mayors.<\/p>\n
How has Broadway changed since you first met it?
\nVoices from the past rise from the sewers,
\nfreed from where the grasses and brooklets,
\nrunning to the rivers, were
\nflattened by the rage of tar and concrete.<\/p>\n
Hairless and jaundiced you
\nlie naked on the floor,
\nmasturbating, showering at 3am,
\nimagining other people’s lives and
\noccupations as if they
\nfill a continuum of love,
\na muddy graph where
\nraces and creeds are
\nmushed together in the
\nstyle of an Astoria street fair,
\nor as you call it,
\nthe lava lamp of America.<\/p>\n
We live like rotted cordwood,
\npoor and affluent,
\nworkers and the lazy,
\nour drunken stumblings and
\nself-induced orgasms
\nbroadcast through
\nwalls and windows wide and weak.<\/p>\n
The flesh of the dead will drip through your ceiling.<\/p>\n
\tO, Astoria.<\/p>\n
\tO, Astoria.<\/p>\n
\n \t\tAstorio.<\/p>\n
\n \t\tAstorio.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
4:35 AM Thursday, October 06, 2011 BROADWAY IN ASTORIA The trance jungle is wilting in cubicles made of honey, domains of dismay where hills of stranded grass cram lifetimes into cans of daylight. Sardines and salmon, stacked as pillers of dismay, remind you that greatness is a fabrication, a pasty fantasy. Wilderness zaps past your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saumAn-broadway","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}