New York Poems

by Melhem, D. H.

• ISBN13: 9780815608134
• ISBN10: 0815608136
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-30
• Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr

Summary

A series of poems spanning thirty years from a long-time New York resident leads the reader through the vanishing milieu of the 1970s and 1980s and concludes with a lyrical panorama of the city's dynamic changes. Original.

Table of Contents

Preface	11	(2)
NOTES ON 94TH STREET	13	(76)
Foreword by Martin Tucker	15	(1)
Introduction by Donald Phelps	16	(3)
the street
Broadway Music	19	(2)
Tough Babe doesn't beg	21	(1)
This tourist, resident	22	(1)
horse at the corner	23	(1)
on 94th street	24	(1)
Dogbaby	25	(1)
picketing jimmy's	26	(1)
supermarket	27	(1)
Order Boy	28	(1)
A Pisser	29	(1)
PIZZA	30	(1)
smiley's deli	31	(2)
Lore, at Green's	33	(1)
Mr. Lee's Laundry	33	(1)
Dogwalker	34	(1)
unnaturals	34	(1)
accident	35	(1)
Crier (song)	36	(1)
by the hudson	37	(1)
Slum Garbage Collection	38	(1)
buildings
From the Second Floor	39	(1)
From the Sixteenth Floor	40	(1)
Musicale	41	(1)
cockroach: a tribute	42	(1)
schoolday	43	(1)
moving in	43	(1)
Mugging	44	(1)
doorman	45	(1)
morning	46	(1)
Conversation	46	(1)
S.R.O.	47	(1)
Cleaning Lady	48	(1)
lamentation after jeremiah to exorcise high rental/high rise building scheduled for construction with public funds	49	(1)
on the roof	50	(1)
loving
john wayne's in bed with you, sylvia	51	(1)
I came awake	52	(1)
overkill	53	(1)
Order	54	(1)
first snow	55	(1)
lovers/Joan of arc statue, 93rd street	56	(1)
wishing (song)	57	(1)
sometimes, baby I think	58	(1)
black sugar	59	(1)
Mrs. Pink Plastic	60	(1)
perspectives
cold poem 1.	61	(1)
cold poem 2.	61	(1)
cold poem 3. hotel	62	(1)
Cop and Robber (song)	63	(1)
In the Park	64	(1)
after dinner	65	(1)
Home Movies on Broadway	66	(1)
imperfections	67	(1)
for dana and gregory, explaining somewhat why we stayed	68	(1)
antinomy	69	(2)
heroines and heroes
fulcrum	71	(1)
on heroes, hero-worship/footnote to Carlyle	72	(1)
for kay leslie	73	(1)
for max and isabel manes	74	(1)
for Max and Isabel Manes, poem revised	75	(1)
Dissident Poet	76	(1)
for jennette washington	77	(1)
margaret cook::	78	(1)
incident at st. gregory's, april 21, 1970	79	(2)
panther	81	(2)
CORRECTION, PLEASE	83	(3)
up here	86	(1)
The Blue Man	87	(2)
CHILDREN OF THE HOUSE AFIRE/More Notes on 94th Street	89	(94)
D.H. Melhem: A Reassessment by Donald Phelps	91	(2)
MICROCOSM	93	(38)
Window Notes
to the sun	95	(1)
window woman	96	(1)
Strangers	97	(1)
two versions of a plane tree	98	(1)
Screamer:	99	(1)
winter woman	99	(1)
subway	100	(1)
express	100	(1)
trackman	101	(1)
ON STRIKE: Local 32B, April 1976	102	(1)
workman	102	(1)
on the street	103	(1)
Toward a redistribution of wealth	103	(1)
ginkgo	104	(1)
from my window	105	(1)
you,	105	(1)
to the symphony theater	106	(1)
electrician	107	(1)
riverside	108	(1)
park mother	108	(1)
The Harlequin Lady	109	(1)
in the street	110	(1)
on 137th street	111	(1)
Pigeonlady	112	(1)
capitalism	113	(1)
Politics: a declamation with demurrers	114	(1)
Children of the House Afire:	115	(4)
Love Notes
love notes	119	(7)
Watching the Tall Ships on the Hudson July 4, 1976	126	(1)
You, Me, and Wallace Stevens's "The Snow Man"	127	(1)
For a troubled friend	128	(1)
L., asleep	129	(1)
The Cool Swan	130	(1)
ROSE POEMS	131	(12)
the dying call us	133	(1)
Wedding-Day, January 17, 1970	134	(1)
Dear Aunt, Upon Your Wedding	135	(1)
at st. vincent's	136	(4)
brimming the chalice of that pillow	137	(1)
from one closed eye	138	(1)
rosie	139	(1)
to the music of rose and henry	140	(3)
MACROCOSM	143	(20)
poems:	145	(1)
New York Times, August 15, 1976 "As Lebanon Dies"	146	(1)
On the tendency toward solipsism in literature	147	(1)
for Seurat, his "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte"	148	(1)
for Greg and Roslynn at Woods Hole	149	(1)
for margaret, at ninety-three, convalescing	150	(1)
on the rejection of an attica prisoner for funeral rites, september 18, 1971	151	(1)
For An Old Woman Killed In The Monterey Hotel, October 30, 1975	152	(1)
leviathan	153	(2)
on bombing one's own troops erroneously	155	(1)
to george jackson (a dirge)	156	(1)
song for angela davis in the women's house of detention	157	(1)
for Delacroix, his "Liberty Leading the People"	158	(2)
To the son of julius and ethel rosenberg at the village gate	160	(1)
attention	161	(2)
REQUIESCANT 9/11	163	(14)
September 11, 2001, World Trade Center, Aftermath	165	(5)
Mindful Breathing	170	(2)
Lines Composed a Few Miles above St. Paul's Chapel, and beside the Viewing Platform, Ground Zero, July 4, 2002	172	(3)
Niagara Falls, after Ground Zero	175	(2)
PROSPECT	177	(6)
About the Author	183