Amy Barone | Yellow

Yellow

The day after fashion designer Gianni Versace

was found murdered in Miami,

 

I rushed to the thrift shop on Milan’s Via Cavour

to retrieve the bright yellow cashmere jacket

 

I had consigned. I wanted to keep a memento

of Versace’s talent, of my fleeting fling with fashion.

 

Today when I wear that jacket on the streets

of Manhattan, people wave and yell out.

 

It makes them smile.

 

Reprinted with author's permission from We Became Summer (NYQ Books)


______________________________

Amy Barone’s latest poetry collection, We Became Summer (New York Quarterly Books), was released in 2018. She has also published two chapbooks, Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing), and is an active member of  both PEN America and the Brevitas forum for short poetry.  Her poetry appears in Paterson Literary Review, Philadelphia Poets, Sensitive Skin, and Standpoint (UK), among other publications. Haling from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, she now hangs her yellow Versace jacket in New York City.

Davidson Garrett | You Talking to Me?

You Talking to Me?

“She flees from those who talk a lot about her.” — Alicia Partnoy

Nocturnal Manhattan — deprived of starlight.

I’m a zombie in my yellow cab’s front seat

numb with fatigue, spinning my tired tires

 

on Lexington, like a brain-fried automaton.

A frumpy, humped-back woman hails me.

Stopping on a dime — an inch from her

 

orthopedic shoes; she stuffs her wide ass

in the backseat of the Crown Victoria

bellowing: “Port Authority.” We cruise

 

west on East 39th, rumbling to the beleaguered

bus station. Out of boredom, I pipe up:

“Do you live in Jersey?” Like a snarling

 

witch, she shrieks: “It’s none of your business!”

Offended by her snotty insouciance,

I retort: “Got lots of friends down in Camden —

 

thought we might travel in the same circles.”

At that she snaps: “STOP THE CHAT AND DRIVE!”

I think to myself: Am I just a mere robot?

 

Is there a law against a cabbie

shooting the breeze with a passenger?

In the darkness of sinister midnight, I

 

deliver this grumpy —— (rhymes with itch)

to her hellish destination. She swipes

her credit card, slams the door with fury

 

as I take a verbal swipe at her.

Rolling down my side window, I shout:

“Lady, you deserve the Port Authority!”

______________________________

Davidson Garrett is a poet, actor, and retired New York City yellow taxi driver. He trained for the theater at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity. A graduate of The City College of New York, he is the author of the poetry collection, King Lear of the Taxi. His new poetry collection, Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Davidson is a member of the PEN America Worker Writers School. www.davidsongarrett.com

Charles Pierre | Green Vistas

Green Vistas

I walk the hard and darkened streets
of Manhattan as winter thaws,
where steel and concrete choke the earth,
where nature can't unfold or flow.

Gaudy neon and bits of glass
sparkling in asphalt swell the night
with portents of spring that lead me
to a park on the river's edge.

My left hand flies from its pocket
to test the air. The air says, Write,
until trees are flaming with leaves,
until waves are emerald fire.

Title poem of Green Vistas (Halyard Press), first published in 1981 and reprinted in 2009.

_________________________________

Charles Pierre was born in New York City in 1945 and raised in Centerport, New York. He studied at the University of Virginia and worked as a copywriter in Manhattan, where he has lived since 1973. Mr. Pierre is the author of five poetry collections: Green Vistas, Father of Water, Brief Intervals of Harmony, Coastal Moments, and Circle of Time.