Poem for the new year

2009

They say in a cathedral everything transforms:
God to ghost, pain to prayer, the wounds divine.
Even the gargoyles scrub watermarks in their spare time.
Two atheists walk into a cathedral,
and what? Knocked around
by enough rose windows and psalms
any cast bell can get giddy,
and sure I’m vaulting today but not where they tell me to go.
It’s the hushed voices—praise but also who’s hungry, who’s bored—
I want to listen to, amplified by limestone so even the quietest get heard.
I want to remember these faces lifted to admire the moon rock in the window:
glass-dappled, blue and red beneath the hoops and small stars,
the light of this world pouring through.

Notes on Dining, Part I

As we come to the close of another Restaurant Week here in New York City, I realize there are a few points that ought to be made to the general public. These points operate along the lines of getting along better with the people you come across, by accident or design, every day. They’re also designed to inculcate a deeper perspective on your own actions, however minute they might appear to be, and how they affect others, particularly those who are in your power.

I realize that this is a big city, with a long and exotic tradition of ruthlessness; that minor indignities are suffered by everyone in every job; and that one can go only so far to be gentle with the feelings of others without sacrificing the possibility of meaningful expression. All that said, however, there is far too much discourtesy shown to people in “service” industries. Everybody has his or her own equivalent to what I’m about to say, so you shouldn’t feel left out, or attacked. Instead, consider this a brief memorandum outlining a few basic ways that, without sacrificing any quality of experience, you can create quality in the lives of others.

(Deliberately omitted are childish lessons like “say please and thank you.” You know to do that. If you aren’t doing it, pay close attention to the following.)

The first is the most important, and it regards tipping.

I can’t believe I finally found it.

A map of the internet

Meditations on the Endlessness of Meaningfulness of Un-nessnessness.

Meditations in an Emergency
by Frank O’Hara

Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French?

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.

Why should I share you? Why don’t you get rid of someone else for a change?

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is