guru
Super Member (250+ posts)
288 Posts Gratitude: 51
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Posted - 05/31/2007 : 09:25:11
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I had lost you to the urban sprawl; and there I found you, off Columbus avenue and 63rd street, fragile and worn out from hepatitis C and diabetes. You had gotten a new prosthetic leg. You were reading Clive Cussler. You read incessantly, and we had exchanged books, and I gave you an Islamic reading of the crusades and Mishima’s ‘Decay of an Angel.’ You had told me about Leon Uris’ ‘Exodus,’ and the British Mandate in the Middle East, and the Republican commentators off of 770 AM radio. We sat there by the East River discussing – disagreeing about politics and imagining purgatory, and women, the archangel St. Michael , and Israel and Palestine, and the secret order of the jesuits. You told me of your motor-cycle accident that left you with one leg, you told me about operating radios, relativity theory, and the boat starboard signals off the river. You told me of your night vigils on the East Side, and your quest to ‘walk the Earth.’ I guess you had abandoned your Montauk home and your fishing boat after 9-11 because you couldn’t be apathetic. You had operated a boat off the coast of the Katrina aftermath, you had congregated with firemen of the terrorist tragedy, and talked about how they had saved your life that September day, and how you had inhaled all that debris and dust and crushed cement cloud of smoke and toxics that poisoned your lungs. Now I see you stand out as a victim of that day, that fateful day, where you became an invalid of the tragedy, and had become kin to the firemen and policemen – NY’s finest - and you were now in the hospital for chemo treatment for the hepatitis, now taking lantus for the diabetes, and still – shoveling snow, sweeping streets, leading boats off the coast and ever-vigilant on those East Side night vigils, reading the meditation of Clavell’s ‘Shogun,’ strong as ever and never defeated, always fighting and never giving an inch, always steadfast and brave, a symbol of a new New York, a stalwart and undefeated will to survive anything, any crutch, any incapacitation – and there in your quiet corner off of 63rd street you quietly reflected the peace of a survivor abandoned homeless to the vast dear city sprawl! |
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Chris
Amazing Member (1000+ posts)
1773 Posts Gratitude: 268
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Posted - 10/15/2008 : 12:44:54
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That's beautiful. It's a little bit like Howl, or at least that's what it reminded me of. Did you know that Ginsburg wrote Howl for a gy who he made friends with in a mental hospital where they were trying to "cure" his homosexuality?
Born in the 80's, grew up in the 90's, lost my mind at the Millenium. |
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