what a jerk, to drag a friend
to hudson yards the day after it opens,
today st patricks day and the city
bursting w/drunk green people. over here
on the west side we join the masses streaming
through knock you down and toss you over
winds, unfinished beams barely held
in place, and here we are, caught in nightmare
video phantasmagoria, particles in the parade
desperate to be the first, to instagram
the sculpture, selfie the mall, march
thru it all and social media it home–noone
can afford whats selling here, or can afford
to live here, we can just gawk at, as as my friend says,
‘the inhumaness’ of it, the scale built for sky-
scraper superheroes clad in metallica, not one
bookstore, or affordable joint to eat, no place
to live no place to hide no place to find a
quirky personal doodled signature corner–
am trying to think what hudson yards reminds me of:
and then i remember: ginsberg’s ‘moloch whose eyes
are a thousand blind windows’– the mob
in nathaniel west’s ‘day of the locust’
rushing towards what dream of fame, these yards
a monument, altar, temple
not to the human spirit, or human flaws,
these yards a monument to mammon–
all thats missing: a skyhigh
Golden Calf–soon baby soon,
and our entrails, hard-earned cash,
fed to the eternally ravenous
250 billion dollar beast
eve packer, sat, 3/16/19: 8: 54 pm
Poetry