A gray veneer coats New York streets

A gray veneer coats New York streets

Plastered wrappers and stinking garbage

Throwaway subway stuffy and cramped

Rain can't wash away the stench

Of broken dreams of freedom 

Immigrants turned away at the door

If I could go back to sleep a few hours

A few hours more

Waking up to what I've been fighting 

Lying with the cat asleep on my crotch. 

Cloudy with a chance of rain on the lawns

I write a poem about slimy city streets,

The kind I saw when Tom was dying

I look at his painting the Brooklyn Bridge

From my safe Pennsylvania home

Am I selfish for choosing life here?

Not the world inside Trump's intestines.

New York City scum in human form

July 9, 2025