East Village Stroll November 4, 2022

The sad crazy lady with the platform shoes and afterimage of beauty shouting gibberish into the air looks like she would have been at have been at one time a passable prostitute

The couple sitting on the steps of the school

 The streets stretching out into infinity but not really, traffic lights lined up until they become tiny dots like soldiers in formation

The gaggle of guys in identical charcoal gray suits walking down the street when all the bars are starting to close

The unusually quiet Thursday night because Halloween was on Monday and everyone is still recovering

The police cars parked on the street to deter violence seem to be working for now

, The loud voices of the drunken people, the coughing of the smoking man with the marijuana being "very strong

The drum beat machine on every corner

 The dour Middle Eastern man smoking his 9 billionth cigarette from inside of a beat up van, arm out the window looking

 The football game and the sports bar with the DJ and the dance floor

The dangerous world with its grim realities

The reveling in the streets

 The bellows of profanity from the drunken giant gym dudes

The girls dressed up in all different ways

 The indescribable cutting edge of fashion and style

 The amplified folks whose gender is hard to pinpoint confuses the conventional mind

 The affable old buddies wearing stylish hats and hugging each other

The unmaskable scent of the fall air against the smells of the city

The madness which is everywhere and nowhere at all

The inexplicable movements of senior citizens in the dead of the night with their shopping carts squeaking down the sidewalk

The ripped up street waiting for a new skin

The garbage bags piled up by the side of the road waiting to be collected

The man who tried to pick me up by asking me if I had a light for his cigarette

The half a dozen people I've known for 15 or 20 years from walking around the city in wheelchairs asking for a dollar And do they recognize me?

 The behemoth construction machines working at 2 AM to reskin the countless tiny streets of Manhattan

The broken chunks of asphalt strewn onto the sidewalk

The people who learned not to have a voice

The people who think they are free but they don't know who they are not

 The billions clamoring to have likes, followers and to go viral

The people with viruses who will never recover

The messages written all over everything

The shitty art that everyone has a right to make

The rat who doesn't seem scared of me at all

The children who don't know what to make of anything

The world which seems closer to the dark ages than anything else

The technology that we don't deserve and often misuse

The love that holds humanity together even when the hate and indifference seems more powerful

 Wondering if that person that you knew has blown their brains out overdosed slit their wrists or hung themselves yet

 Having the determination and curiosity to see where it goes

Sharpening the sword of hope on the whetstone of despair

 The unhomed people who live in Tompkins Square Park

 The giant sacred Hare Krishna tree with its benches uncharacteristically empty as contrasted with the thick summer nights and the crowds of tattooed pierced kids with plumes of vape

 The brain stems connected directly to the larynxes

The hearts disconnected from the brains

 That one full bar with just the right number of people and a sentimental crowd playing pool and listening to old songs is like a cottage with a hearth in the middle of Winter's coldest night

 The cobblestones of humanity held together by pure magical spells of binding, or psychological networks of brain