David Lehman's daily poem collections inspired me a few years ago to take on that exercise. Though I lack his talent, technical flair and discipline (which is why his are published between covers and mine aren't!), the challenge loosened me up and made me less fussy about waiting to be inspired by a DEEP TOPIC and I had fun working with whatever was right in front of me in the moment.
So here're a handful centered around a topic dear to every native-New Yorker neighborhood-identifying snob: the view. To be clear, I don't care about zip-code status, but I confess to a preciously low tolerance for urban ugliness. Very luckily, I've somehow always landed in aesthetically extraordinary real-estate situations. I grew up in a elegantly solid pre-war apartment my parents snagged just as it went co-op. Then the couple who owned the architecture firm where I had worked invited me to live in the top floor room of their beautifully renovated townhouse in return for light gardening and weekend housesitting. (Yes it was for free, and I lived there for the rest of my 20s.) When I turned 30, I finally sought out my own apartment, and I got an incredible "in" to one of the few remaining rentals on Central Park West. Given my budget, the apts facing the Park were out of my range, but actually I quite preferred what I ended up with–the smallest and cheapest line had two large picture windows facing West with a fantastically textured urbanscape, complete with techicolored sunsets. Since it was a landmarked neighborhood, even from my relatively lowly 8th-floor vantage point, I could see over all the lower townhouses clear to the Hudson. Below are the snapshots:
ROOM FOR A NEW VIEW
Born on the far East Side
the eldest of three
I dwelled local until 30
when I wanderlusted West,
running towards the sun
the only rebelling heliotrope
to brave Olmstead & Vaux’s
contrived Ramble.
I leapt not knowing I would find myself
a centenarian resplendent in ramshackle gentility
stenciled with tarnished laurels in the lobby
chipped mosaics decking the halls
stained glass conjuring a candy-colored pastoral
a proud presence on the avenue despite
sketchy electricity and splintering veneer floors.
No complaints from this tenant happy in the smallest line
whose move here—now three years old–
feels very Sarah Crewe turned Little Princess
still pinching.
My bed at the sill a box seat view:
neo-classical cornices and back balconies
gritty chimney pots and jumbled geometries,
recall the Ashcan School, Fairfield
Porter and even Brassai.
With mock grandiosity
I tell my guests:
drink more Merlot
–you’ll see!—
it looks like Paris
–only better.
THE TOWNHOUSES BELOW
Grand dame Victorians
dolled up with curlicues
chocolate, caramel, milky malted
a close-packed box of fussily primped truffles.
EXERCISING DISCIPLINE
my neighbor’s exhibitionist
constitutional unglues
his combover when
trampolining topless daily
hairy breasts heaving
cancan kicking and
backslapping himself
an exercise in restraint
not to look
WATER TOWERS STEAL THE LIMELIGHT
Gargantuan freak insects
escape from the movie palace
alighting on the city’s tarpaper
daintily stilt-legging across the horizon
their horrifying barrel-chested silhouettes
swarming out the winter weak sun.