“parade’s end”
By Samantha Vacca
I live down the block
from a funeral home; a bar
separates us
a place where the downtrodden exit
chirping Circadian rhythms
around eleven, carts
bustle over rain-slick squares
with
rectilinear movements
I remain immersed in
the gray candor of staring out the window
at home, unable to decipher noise
and emotion from static
stitched-up without a hero
pretending that we are talking, watching corners
turn corners
unadulterated silence
I used to want to live
forever—
convinced this longing
would be satisfied
before death had a grasp
what’s it all really worth
to the man picking
his teeth with three of his fingers?
he wipes them,
openly
on his brown suspenders.
he loves Hockney’s pool scenes;
he’s humming the fifth movement of Symphonie Fantastique;
he’s oblivious to the nuzzling vigor
of hearsay
(rat-a-tat-tat)
the lintel falls and bops me on the head;
it isn’t the time for a parade’s end.
Samantha Vacca is a poet and copywriter. She has lived in Bay Ridge for 10 years.
Salim Hasbini is a film photographer and Bay Ridge native whose work combines escapism and the street. He was featured in this year’s Bay Ridge SAW and recently held his first solo exhibition, Without Words, in Brooklyn.
“Ridging the Arts” is a monthly feature pairing the work of local writers with that of local visual artists. Hear writers read their work, and meet local artists and art-lovers, on the last Sunday of every month at the Bay Ridge Poets Society open mic, at the Owl’s Head Wine Bar (479 74th Street). The next reading is June 28 at 7pm (ish).
Follow Hey Ridge on Twitter @heyridgebk