A Million Nameless Streets

I reveled the city at dawn... scrumbled up

until sundown... aye, the night falls by so gently

a snowflake of means

on a redlight canvas

I've passed a thousand one-way windows

christmas-light-gilded...

I did not enter...

I've seen a thousand christmas trees

as sad as lonely as can be

I did not smile at their

futile deaths

I've passed a thousand blue strangers...

lit up w/ strangers' true kindness

yet I did not take their offers...

I've passed a million plastic Santa-Clauses

yet I did not feel enraptured

& a man in a black sleazy raincoat 

beggin' for fire

came out of his ehtereal door

his pubs, boutiques & drugstores

& I've passed a million real cosy restaurants...

Bodega vinehouses & such...

ready for Christmas frenzy

w/ their ornaments white

I did not enter...

I've passed a thousand cafes now closed

I wanted to enter

at any cost

I had a hundred bottles of booze

still couldn't kill all these strangers...

the lamp-gilded city hollows

announced a homeless-blue-dinner

I did not eat w/ the homeless... 

no, not this time

& the city became a graveyard of sorts

so beautiful in its denial