I was in New York once before. At the time, my childhood friend Vartan was living in the city. I was on a cruise ship and by some random glitch, I was unable to get off the ship when we had a day out on the town planned with him and my Canadian friend Sarah.
Next thing I knew I had a plane out of New York and some hours to see Vartan before that. I ended up napping in his Queens apartment, then having some lunch with him when he came back from class and finally riding to JFK.
I saw Times Square and all that from a bus that took me from the harbor to JFK, before I went to Vartan´s. I also saw the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline from Cape Liberty many times, but that was all the New York I ever got.
It is a special occasion to be going back to the city for my film premiere. The more so, since there is a chance that I will also be having poetry readings with my poetic soulmate Cecilia Martínez-Gil, a Santa Mónica-based Uruguayan poet.
If these poetry readings we are working on putting together finally come through, I guess I should read some of the poems I wrote to the city, as I looked at it from Cape Liberty and remembered the falling towers and the Baghdad invasion, and it almost felt better to have that perspective and see it all from outside, thinking that Manhattan couldn´t look more beautiful seen from anywhere else but that nondescript harbor across the bay.
Here is a taste of what was going through my heart and mind back then.
Cape Liberty (Cape Liberty, Spring 2006)
everywhere in the world
and I despise them
I don´t need television
cruise ships
missions to Mars
cars that can talk
boardwalks with telescreens
Wireless technology
wireless hearts
estranged from soil
and history
New York, Paris,
Algiers, Baghdad
always the bombs
always the cars
the electricity
the wireless
the disconnected hearts
I saw the line of
buildings
of New York city
across the Bay
from Cape Liberty
and it was
as if I´d seen a ghost
the black grim clouds
of March
a vision of the smoke
from the two towers
Unreal
to see these clouds
as having seen
the crash
across the bay
from Cape Liberty
A fantasy
fit for Hollywood
I saw the lines of
buildings
I saw the city
of New York
and the green worn Statue
across the bay
the City of the world
the heart of finance
if finance ever had a heart
the measure of success
the Empire State building
parting its seas
I have sailed
under Brooklyn Bridge
and I saw the fire
on the TV
overlooking the Hill
of Montevideo
el Cerro sin luces de la tarde
Montevideo
the most beautiful of all
and still
I know
cities
everywhere the same
I despise them all
and wish to go back
to long walks
in the garden
and fresh fruit
from trees
I long for the simple
beauty of the past
when every land
had its own music
every village and kingdom
its own
beating heart
Not this
of the West
Where every city
is the same
and every one
saves
a hiding place
for missiles
a secret prison
for people that don´t exist
Red ink inside the back cover of Stories of Paul Bowles (Cape Liberty, Spring 2006)
I saw New York through a
fence and was
appalled by small
red men
in orange vests
advising me
not to sit in the sun
not to go near the water
lest I should
break the law
The green mossy
weary
Statue of Liberty
looming in
the too familiar skyline
forever linked
to falling buildings,
and faded Hope
The Statue
too late for liberty
too late for sunshine
and the wrong day
for reading
my Paul Bowles
in the sun
my Savage Beauty
life of Vincent Millay
who once
lived in New York
and felt the lure
and this same dread
Too many men
in orange vests
too much of bush
and not one tree
the faded Forest
too much of bridge
and not the sea
This fake New York
That someone painted over the clouds
so passengers from cruise ships
would feel so grand
to stand amid
this rubble heap