At the Edge where the Quiet meets some Dissonance

There are no quiet corners here...too many people...too many lights, too many cars, taxis, trucks, buses and an occasional stalwart individual who pedals two lovers in the back of a bike...

There are no shadow places where one can hide, despite the overwhelming amount of corners, despite the vast amount of buildings and fences and dead-ends...there are no edges of a shadow where one can lurk, waiting for just the right moment.

There are no easy crossings, too many cars colliding down an avenue...too many cars turning against the signal...greens, reds...somebody is always moving, somebody is always coming or going.

There is no pause in an evening...there is no shelter from the wind.  There is a trace of rain or snowfall on each and every inch...there is a dark gray clump leftover without notice.

There are brush-bys, glances, slight blows...barely touched, barely grazed.

There are the bespectacled...the hat-wearers...the scarves, the purses...colors, grays and colors muted.  A hundred thousand...maybe more...swarming...

Lovers.  Soloists.  Alone.  Crowded.  Groups.  Packs.

A single shadow against the light of some neon.

The surge of strangers...the chaos of a crowd...the heat of a humanity...pulsating and streaming like bloodflow down an avenue.  Warming.

A million people on their own way...each with a fear...each with a hope...each with a pencil written note in their mind of a love...maybe unsent, maybe unseen...maybe undelivered.

Notes littering the streets carried by cold ugly rain and cold ugly wind...colors of trash and tiny tin sparks...aluminum...paper...bottles emptied.  The stench of something inescapable...never too far from it, never close enough to enjoy.

I walk and shuffle...I collect and fold...I remember...I glance upwards at a stale moon and I think of how it means nothing but dead empty lightbulbs...not enough to cast a shadow, cast a wit, cast a care.

A siren pierces an unusual quiet...and then I remember...I get it.

New York City is my mind...and you and your eyes are the millions who walk through it, drive angry through it, make love in the rainy evening of it and drift through it anonymously except for the glimpses that I catch and recognize you among the million things in my mind.