compendium of universal human situations

david berman

New York New York

A second New York is being built
a little west of the old one.
Why another, no one asks,
just build it, and they do.

The city is still closed off
to all but the work crews
who claim it’s a perfect mirror image.

Truthfully, each man works on the replica
of the apartment building he lives in,
adding new touches,
like cologne dispensers, rock gardens,
and doorknobs marked for the grand hotels.

Improvements here and there, done secretly
and off the books. None of the supervisors
notice or mind. Everyone’s in a wonderful mood,
joking, taking walks through the still streets
that the single reporter allowed inside has described as

“unleavened with reminders of the old city’s complicated past,
but giving off some blue perfume from the early years on earth.”

The men grow to love the peaceful town.
It becomes more difficult to return home at night,
which sets the wives to worrying.

The yellow soups are cold,
the sunsets quick.
The men take long breaks on the fire escapes,
waving across the quiet spaces to other workers
meditating on their perches.

Until one day…

The sky fills with charred clouds.
Toolbelts rattle in the rising wind.

Something is wrong.

A foreman stands in the avenue
pointing binoculars at a massive gray mark
moving towards us in the eastern sky.

Several voices, What, What is it?

Pigeons, he yells through the wind.

joanna fuhrman

Autobiography (Pink Remix)

Everyone’s childhood was swallowed by a whale.
Inside the belly, we dreamed of a future where
we’d speed, miles underground, through the veins of
a snoring giant princess named New York.

Inside the belly, we dreamed of a future where
Manhattan would become us, but we would be
a snoring giant princess named New York,
shiny with orange drizzle and telepathic streetlights.

Manhattan would become us, but we would be
made out of the flames of other spiraling cities,
shiny with orange drizzle and telepathic streetlights.
Our livers Chicago, our ankles pure L.A.

Made out of the flames of other spiraling cities,
our noses would be the dirty canals of Berlin,
our livers Chicago, our ankles pure L.A.
Skin: the color of mannequins. Eyes: black glass.

Our noses would be the dirty canals of Berlin,
skirting around Turkish ice cream parlors.
Skin: the color of mannequins’ eyes. Black glass
hair lost in the mirrors of reflective birds.

Skirting around Turkish ice cream parlors,
we’d remember the sadness of our childhood,
hair lost in the mirrors of reflective birds,
memories found in the necks of oceanic monitors.

We’d remember the sadness of our childhood,
how we slept alone for so many years.
Memories found in the necks of oceanic monitors.
Everyone’s childhood swallowed by a whale.