Newspaper asks

Why is the sky not purple?

Answer Man:

also Phat, now passé

Words remember young men in a hurry

and young women full of worry

Every tribe has a hat, a wig, a crown

For say kindergarten graduations

Satin sash, scepter, and badge

The princes and princesses doted on by grandmothers,

who appear especially young. 

Once again sixteen when blood and semen

tears and motherhood hit like a wave of August air

on Atlantic Avenue. 

Then money, men and make up

Make out what life will be.

But that was then

And now baby mama’s baby is a baby mama herself

Was not supposed to be like that

But Brooklyn is where “real” and dreams collide

Where a real Salvadoran family walks

In to mad fender of a drunken cop’s truck

Where the real principal of PS 15 in Red Hook

meets a crack dealer’s 9 millimeter

Where real families in the Coney Island projects stay away from the beach

stay away from the sea. But loose their blues in bad news.

They store their dreams in numbers, play their chances

But lore haunts wishes, and they hear the waves

Mock their easy drowning, their useless desperation;

their willingness to fail.

young men in a hurry now middle aged

fathers, husbands, favorite uncles

entrepreneurs

in retail legal, illicit sometimes

Preachers in storefront churches

where life is lived in its poetic forms.

House proud in the Flatlands, off Flatbush

or out in Kensington where the rambling house

recall New England or in Mill Basin where you can smell the sea.

There they are at the barbecue, beers in hand

wary of strangers, wary of their children, the boys

especially, their pants drooping down.

Bullets and booty –legends created.

Where a Haitian boy becomes a dealer and rapper and dapper enough

To create a new style of porcine couture

Chapeau cocked and diamond pin on the wide lapel

Of his well-tailored suit.

The Public Enemy.

Italian suits, the hangers on, money belt full

All that pride.

Festive.  Funky.  Vulgar.  Brooklyn in the House Y’all.

Oh that folly. 

Assassins and murders –legend made.

Tall tales said, retold, retooled for fools.

Casting an echoing pall over the

projects—Weeksville, Walt Whitman,

Lives forgotten in Coney Island

Riddle me this:

What’s the difference between Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur?

Biggie chose between his Mama and the Street.

Tupac’s Mama was The Street.

Hope comes with knowledge.

When Manhattan Negroes escaped  from the murdering Irish

in the Draft Riots they made their way to Weeksville.

Weeksville Negroes had guns and were ready to use them.

Brooklyn is the place where protection, in all its guises, is worn.

Botanic Gardens, Sunday

courting couples parade.

She wears a modest flowery dress

He is in a suit shaped circa 1895, large hat on small head.

They talk of

Family and the education of children

And soon

There will be a wedding and children

Many children

Bewigged, she jogs in gathered skirts around the Garden’s perimeter

Solitude in the green air.

He goes to work but the money is not enough for house too small

And family too large—a job is not enough

Traffic in ecstasy and conflict diamonds, that’s

One way out of the cash drought

He stays within the tribe’s compound, remains undetected.

Mayhem and modesty.  Their children groomed to take on

A world where the Messiah’s second coming is debated once again

Since the possible Messiah has died a most natural of deaths. 

Hope for the day when midnight strolls are safe again.

Hope the daffodils return in spring—promises in the soil.

Brooklyn is not Jerusalem, but for now, it will do.

Oh the sweet life, commerce brings comfort

the bright life

Park Slope Saturday or Sunday

The stroll along Seventh Avenue

Carriages jam sidewalks

Going up and coming down.

Going up and coming down.

Oh these couples, brunettes, blonds and redheads

clever, young, well not so young

And their picture perfect infants

Stop to be noticed by the other smiling couples

Who not to be outdid sport their share of fertility.

Twins or triplets formerly rare, now everywhere.

Husbands wear baseball caps.  Their fathers wore real hats.

Panama hats in summer.  Homburgs in the winter.

Now their sons sport symbols of fandom on the crowns of their caps.

The Yankees.  The Mets.  An occasional Atlanta Brave. 

They wave to each others’ children. 

Then high fives as if standing near an electrified fence.

Wives and mothers hover over their picture perfect infants

Anxious for good behavior.  Infants sleep.  Or sigh. Or cry.

Autumn summons clouds.  Cashmere wraps around bony shoulders.

Talk real estate.  Talk market.  Talk schools. 

Talk weather or whether to move

Maybe upstate or Connecticut—if the market is really good this year.

Going up

Coming down

Coming down, new downtown. 

Girls and girls.

Boys and boys.  Holding hands.

Like kindergarten

Seventh Avenue safe walk

Bedford Street safe walk

Rooted on Park Slope’s side streets

where parties and chatter shatter neighbors’ myths

about who or what or why. 

But there’s that cry

From the foul mouthed, the misogynist, the homophobe.

Fear is real and bats are real and curses hurt

but not as much as bats and knives and fists.

But strength takes hold and who wants to look for another

apartment?  Fight back.  Walk together. 

Hands holding hands on the sunlit calles

Modesty when necessary.  Brazen behavior later.

Brooklyn is where every tribe finds its weapons and takes a stand.

a ROSE is many named:

“Ballerina” hybrid musk, 1937

“Spartan” floribunda, deep, deep pink, 1955

“Marchesa Boccella” hybrid perpetua, 1842

“White Cap” found in Texas, a bastard

“Chicago Peace” 1962, was there ever

“Talisman”, 1929, Ruth’s mother’s favorite rose

“Fortune Teller” a hybrid tea, 1993

“Eglantine Rose” Rosa Rubiginosa, 1551 hips really

“Camelot” grandiflora, 1965, a memory

“John F. Kennedy” hybrid tea, 1965

“Audrey Hepburn” hybrid, pink almost blushing

 and the white, potently- scented

“Double-flowered Musk Rose”, pre 1596

Brooklyn is where species are saved from extinction—roses, tribes, the makers of hats.