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stopped in Newport, Rhode Island, now somewhere in Connecticut on the way to NYC. “New Jersey: the Garden State” –pretty generic license plate motto.
“New York: the Empire State”.  They’re building a Toys R Us in Times Square, they’re calling it “the Center of the Universe”…which seems perfectly reasonable. Meanwhile, there’s a TGI Friday’s, Virgin Megastore, Planet Hollywood, and Laser Signs projected onto the sidewalks. It felt like Metropolis meets Robson and Burrard. There’s an enormous police presence, with a station right in the middle, looking like a ‘50’s diner. We’re walking around, being “aware” and I realize all the people around us are tourists. The billboards advertise the GAP, Banana Republic, and the Weakest Link. It felt like we were in Disneyland. I guess there were still the giant signs, flashing ceaselessly, and the towering buildings, illuminated so brightly they turned the night sky light purple. There were the man-made valleys of the city, and the marquees scrolling the latest news and stock prices to no one in particular. These spectacles were not intended for us. They were geared outward, to beyond the purple sky, signaling, to whatever’s out there, that this is, indeed, the center of the universe.
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when I came to new york, it was raining
the bus streamed, and water weighted branches dragged across the roof
central park, sinai, the guggenheim, the met,
people carrying umbrellas, garbage bags, or nothing,
walking, in the rain, past the gardens, past the trash,
past the doormen, past the street peddlers
the taxis, looking horribly yellow and plastic,
modular and modeled,
fight, dripping wet
the sewers steam, the buildings tower, the rain falls
the tour guide waxes eloquent about the attractions,
the history, the safety,
in this place of myth, legend, fame, infamy, dreams, and nightmares
the buildings touch the clouds
the clouds soak the people
dwarfed by their own creations
they built their temples to the sky
and fought their daily battles on the ground
the lights of times square blur their endless urgent messages
the rain still falls
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