Ode to NYC

I'm back from New York and getting used to the streets of L.A. again, but I'm still in the city in some way, still in the grip of tulip mania, thinking about the colors, variations, multitudes, which are hard to get out of my head. Here's my ode to the city, and my gratitude for being there this spring!


After nine eleven
the ballrooms lay empty,
the streets slick with tears
Sideway glances/suspicious stares



   (street art across from B.A.M.)

But the city, now, this spring, 
this year,
is full of tulips
Tulips, tulips

everywhere!     

A kind of 
Tulip mania (without an effect on prices*) 
Someone— was it Bloomberg?—
planted tulips
from Battery Park to Morningside
from west side
to east side,
     
in rows, in lots, in tiny garden boxes 
And in one bright moment,
they all popped! 
You could hear the sounds of
cameras clicking, tourists gasping, petals dropping



Multitudes of tulips 
(and the High Line)
expunged the past
They, not Liberty Street, beckoned us
(but be forewarned, if you go on the High Line, it's hard to walk!)
Oh, NYC,
this spring, how you celebrate yourself!
     

* Tulip mania, the first recorded speculative bubble, when the market for bulbs went haywire and then collapsed. 

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And a new Rat's Nest Comic, straight off the presses!