It\u2019s not hard to think of yourself, the
\nempty beer bottle, your sleeping wife
\n(on the border of despair),
\nthe news that brews disaster after disaster
\nmore revelations of harassment shootings
\nafter school genocide on top of genocide
\non top of genocide with no hope of solution
\nin the face\/flames of protest.
\nI sit here worrying about my competence
\nmy ego, my pocket book
\nthinking how will I survive, how my debts
\nwill be erased, how my mind will be purged
\nor cleansed year after year.
\nThe trail cannot be cleaned by the mop bucket or pail.
\nIt keeps leaking and poisoning the soil.
\nIn the cold grey morning
\nthe birds talk, the cars honk, the dogs bark,
\nyour eyes itched get rubbed because irritated.
\nYou think you have nothing intriguing to write about
\neven though you know it\u2019s not true,
\nyou with the royal wedding clips.
\nIt\u2019s a joyous distraction my wife and
\nyou must admit even if deprived of sleep,
\neven if the minister speaks of love this love
\nas the most purest of things.
\nYou see a dark play that is so funny
\nOur Lady of 121st street by Stephen Adly Guirgis,
\nit brings you close to sobbing
\nexcept it has no resolution or ending
\nreally for anything, and this my wife the playwright
\nsays is the point.
\nIn the cold grey morning it is supposed
\nto go up to eighty-two degrees
\neven though the sun may not shine at all
\nand the humidity will\/can soak us through.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
Micah Zevin is a librarian poet living in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y. He has recently published articles and poems in such journals as: The Otter; The Newtown Literary Journal and Blog; Poetry and Politics; Reality Beach; Jokes Review; Post (Blank); American Journal of Poetry; Tower Journal; Five2OneMagazine,<\/em> the What Rough Beast Series <\/em> at Indolent Books, Maudlin House, and has work forthcoming in the Heavy Feather Review.<\/em> He created\/curates an open mic\/poetry prompt workshop called The Risk of Discovery Reading Series now at Blue Cups in Woodside, Queens, N.Y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s not hard to think of yourself, the empty beer bottle, your sleeping wife (on the border of despair), the news that brews disaster after disaster more revelations of harassment shootings after school genocide on top of genocide on top of genocide with no hope of solution in the face\/flames of protest. I sit here [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[362],"class_list":["post-7581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-winter-morning-by-ivan-grohar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7581"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7972,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581\/revisions\/7972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}