I boarded the train, after taking multiple photographs of it’s full face before me. it was empty, for a moment. The conductor, a shorter fellow, scruffy, very much reminiscent of the hard working nyc aesthetic came out, and locked his control room behind him. in his absence, tourists poured in. the entire train was filled, children sitting on children laughing, a man singing like maria carey for tips; conversations of the holidays resounded everywhere. the conductor shuffled back in and slowly made his way back to the control room, “excuse me folks, excuse me, behind you.” it was a struggle on his part to say nonetheless. I was seated with the torsos of at least fifty tourists around me. the doors closed, and the train ride took not more than two minutes.

“Is this where we get off?” families started asking other families.
“It’s the only stop.” locals mumbled.

I waited for the train to empty out a bit before exiting. My feet placed firmly in the door of the train I looked down to see perhaps the widest gap between train and platform that could be even remotely legal. It nearly resembles a moat, and building a bridge between them wouldn’t have been the worst idea. the explanation for such a wide gap took not too long to put together, as i rationalized that perhaps the trains were wider, if not even one hundred years ago, but perhaps twenty, before trains resembled silver bullets.

the train once again i noticed, had ended where you could see the very front of it if you were to walk around to it, and the platform curved on, aligned precisely with the train, as seen very rarely in nyc, where pedestrians were allowed to walk as if you were to follow the train into the dark tunnel for a while before coming onto to a pair of steps to the outside world; a majestic sight in it’s own right.

to get from the shuttle to the a train in times square is quite a maze, and also, apparently an adventure, in which i am lead to believe i walked at least a mile underground, up stairs and then down stairs, ramps, and curved hallways, all very apparently redone in the 1990′s or later, unlike where i exited the train into an untouched 1904, where the first subway train in new york ever ran, i am lead to believe that perhaps it was even from that exact platform i had earlier described.

On my journey through the station, there were hundreds of tourists, a tribute beatles band called “The Meetles”, screen advertisements placed into the walls, shiny shiny shiny and various popular shops for temporary strap-hangers to wander into, as if the shopping couldn’t wait until they exited out to the times square sidewalk, which is much akin to walking through some kind of downtown tokyo daydream. a young man played a rendition of honky tonk women in one of the tunnels headed towards port authority, there was a lapse in stores and the environment shifted into long tunnels with tile art, portraits of kids in scarves and families with smiles on their faces (“us! whoa! it’s us walking through the tunnels, how quaint!” is the message i think they were attempting to send.) one tunnel couldn’t see the end of another, so by maze, i really i do mean it felt like one. Towards the end a particular left leaning maze, i heard a beautiful sound- beethoven perhaps, no, not beethoven, i said to myself… i was waiting to turn the corner, expecting a gentleman perhaps in his late 20′s, early 30′s playing a keyboard with perfection, i began to turn my ears to where the sound was coming from, walking faster….
i turn the corner and see a mass of people crowding around the musician, and walk to the front only to see the smallest young boy, with a suit and bow-tie, playing a keyboard raised not even two feet from the floor. five feet away, dressed exactly the same, is his father, an italian, ushering peoples attention to his boys jar which i am assuming was overflowed with oohs and aaahs taken the form of cold hard cash. I watched for a moment, smiling and perhaps, admittedly, shedding a single or perhaps two tears at the sight of immense talent in a person so young before continuing en route to the a train, past tile-people and real people, down further more stairs, until i arrived to the platform. Everything once again, felt overwhelming normal-looking.
people were tired and holding bags. i was one of them, though my various sets of awe-striking moments had woken me up a bit more than what their faces projected.
The train pulled onto the station, and i sat, as most new yorkers do, with eyes peeled to the floor, staring at peoples shoes.

this is when memory took hold.

when i was a young child, growing up in bay ridge brooklyn, i rode the trains quite frequently, every day in fact. They were silver-ish and dirty and had chairs and poles, and often were the base of many graffiti artists come and gone. every so often, my mother and i would visit her sister, to do this we took the 7 train to flushing. It was my favorite train in all the world to ride, as this was for one particular reason: it was old. it was red. and it slightly resembled a submarine. On it’s interiors, were moss colored seats, and a colored tile floor which was very easily dirtied. riding in this train as a child felt as if i were in the very early 1900′s going on a very important journey. it was a novelty i could understand at even such a young age.

These trains no longer exist anywhere in new york city, and i must wonder where they’ve all went, lost and gone, re-done and used for parts, history traded out for new smells, gutted of their art and human presence. the trains i rode daily, were all covered in art, people came and left and their marked stayed behind- the history of graffiti in america didn’t need a book to be catalogued, all that one needed was to ride the train out to the depot and look at them all, far from shining, and proud.

todays trains are the perfect example of the consumerist need for sterility in america. broken things are no longer fixed, they’re replaced. to feel comfortable in any atmosphere you have to feel as if you were the first person to discover it. white-washed, clean, and shine, as if those somehow represented our souls, which they are far from. silver bullets screeching into stations of white tile, despite the dirt and tread of daily life, any marking made by another person in the form of art of revolt is immediately removed, scratched windows promptly replaced as so the city’s messages are never seen. when did our need for sterile and polished arrive to such a degree? that everywhere we walk must be scrubbed clean of personality? we, as people, are touched by everything. marked by experience, scarred by traumas, scrawled all over in poems, and yet- the general public asks only for silver silver shine and shine, that decorum is a lack of humanity having ever passed through it, as if each perfectly polished train held the silent message: “Don’t worry, no one has ever been here.” it would almost appear to such a person as myself that these people are partially attempting to clear themselves of all their histories and art- to once again become “sterile” despite having not even been born that way.

Riding the trains as a child, everything was touched- some left with important messages, some far from, but to ride a train, to take in all the art, was to be a part of something bigger than yourself, to be in the artistry of new york, the history of new york, the heart beat.

If,  ”The city changes more quickly than the human heart”  scrawled by Baudelaire were to be
found on the window or the door of a train, it would be quickly erased and wiped away as if the words were not so holy and truthful. the fingerprints of mankind go erased, history is replaced by new shine, but never mind with polish, replacement has become the key to this new consumerism, and being the largest city in the world, new york city’s apple has no choice but to absorb it all..

but i, and you, and baudelaire can never be replaced,
and the red trains never erased from memory.

20 —> W Burnside & SW 4th

go to SW 4th & Ash

4 —> St. Johns

N/Miss & Mason

Walk South.

i begin to question my muse:

it is either by love or dissastifaction

that i must be fueled.

and the arisal of the opposite of my personal mind

versus their foreign ego

that constantly awaked me into dreams

of monsters and minstrels,

their statues stand erect for…no reason

then,

the coming of the photographs drawn

for the beautiful poet angels

or the constant creationists

or the sex

or the smoke filled rooms where we laid down

and touched for the first time

and fell

deep

deep

deep

but still not deep enough into one another

i want every single inch of your being

inside every inch of my being

and our minds

to go on a rampage

of love

and some sick revolt against

the 22nd century

i want to take your love with me and call it a day

when it’s time

and maybe, even remember my name when it comes to you the 49th time

you’ve travelled through me

and collect dreams like flower petals

on some spring day walk

through the tunnels of your own confused angel mind

and i will kiss you

and kiss you

n’ kiss you

until there isn’t any space left

and geometry becomes the only solution

to our equation.

and remember again how to SPEAK as we ARE

breathe as WE ARE

think as we ARE

like we are born over and again into this moment

before us

their egos grow like statues in their own minds

and I am, torn apart

waking up again confused by daily angels, or prophets

verbs/nouns

heady incomplete angels

walking through life as if it were some parade

seen and again and new everytime

because they are the star of this particular movie called

“their existence” and it ain’t a b-side experience

if they’re there

none of it is actual

foundated

real

it is a mirage of culture

some expounding on the ego battered and torn and created as some

new chapter we should ALL pay keen eye to

despite it’s harsh emptiness and lack of depth

i am AWAKE

because i have no name

given up skkin

fallen in love

hated each decibel in a desperate need of sleep

spoken like there was no sun or moon but only this room

and this room only

my ego is a small child

a ghost playing with a clock

i can not parade like the salt angels do.

O, i too come off illusory.

[One, two...]

I never liked him very much. He was an obnoxiously rude mathematician I had the consequence of knowing by surviving in the same microcosm as him.

Still, his eyes lit up when he saw me.

one. two.

one. two.

I haven’t seen you in a while,

you been okay?

One, two. One two.

One…..Two.

At first the numbers were their own separate sentences. Then, they were only a link to the next number in line, filling a sentence with a number of them, until he was repeating them, quicker. I thought I hadn’t heard him clearly. I sat down and fixed my eyes towards the back of the bus, but his hand was reaching. His eyes were filled, he had something really important to tell me.

Yes, Jim?

One two. One two one two one two. 1,2,1,2, One two.

He was looking at me as if I knew exactly what he meant.

One….Two. I’m sorry.

I meant it. I really was sorry.

He looked at me as if I had understood him, and his eyes calmed.

We watched each other for the duration of the bus ride, … he held his arm, waving for a moment, trying to find the buzzer to let him off, but couldn’t. I pulled it while he was searching, and when the sound occurred, he let his arm down, satisfied that he’d found it. One. Two.

One two.

He was gone.