Bryant Park by Gary Beck

A manicured slice
of controlled nature
tentatively exists
in midtown Manhattan,
a transit point
for workers, tourists,
the gibbering homeless
lost without their meds,
the lunch hour crowd
stealing a few minutes
from urban bustle,
almost ignoring
the screech of brakes,
the roar of engines,
urgent sirens
desperate to penetrate
the traffic snarl
conspiring to prevent
rescue of the endangered.
Idlers sit with newspapers
absorbed in disasters.
In season, children’s shouts,
the reading room,
opera, movies,
literary events,
combining to humanize
an alien city
with glimms of culture
for the  non-elite.
The women pass
in short skirts,
tight tops,
parading their flesh
in freedom,
unmolested
by the morals police.
The men wear short sleeves
shorts, sandals
in the brief, fading clime
of New York City,
none aware enough
how quickly things change
to sudden detonation.

Gary Beck has 11 chapbooks. Poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways (Winter Goose Publishing), with 5 more accepted. His novels include: Extreme Change, Acts of Defiance and Flawed Connections. He currently lives in NYC.