The Human Core - Poem , The City

The Gallerist

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:00:00 +0000

About selling

They were never wrong;

The old cognoscenti in sports coats,

Spinning stories, sensuously salacious,

Selling art to suckers

Through their ears.

About people

They were never wrong;

The old guards

Shuffling past the Brueghel,

Listen for hours,

Pained by monologues

Of what people do not say

As they cock their heads and slant

Their bodies to the art.

Listen, listen

To the air conditioning in long-vacant silences

When people forget about art.

Listen, listen

As the docent speaks

About the value of art.

The value of art

Speaks

Many tongues.

The value of art is

The hope we keep inside

Like a pilot light.

The value of art is

Recognizing oneself

In the world.

The value of art is

Drawing a box around

What is worthy of civilization.

The value of art is

Infused with the hallucinations

Of wealth.

The value of art is

Discovering the beauty

Of other people’s minds.

The value of art is

The hunt

Of the deal.

The value of art is

Spending time with your parents

In the glow of creativity.

The value of art is

In the pause of wonder, when a house guest

Realizes what you have on your wall.

The value of art is

Seeing The Joy of Life

Through your daughter's eyes.

The value of art is

Realizing the sovereignty

Of your creative sense.

The value of art is

Proximity to the godhead

That is beauty.

The value of art is

Feeling the vitality and mystery

Of intentionality.

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The Publisher- I

Wed, 20 May 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Nobody knows

Everyone wears the same clothes,

Except for a trendy scarf.

Nobody knows

There are lines of coke beneath the keyboards

And trash cans full of barf.

Nobody knows

This is a dying industry, dying like an old Hollywood starlet,

Dying for decades.

Nobody knows

The art of histrionics

Like media executive tirades.

Nobody knows

What

To want.

Nobody knows

How

To flaunt.

Nobody knows

How

To love.

Nobody knows

Who Leonard Cohen

Really was.

Nobody knows

How

Fate works.

Nobody knows

If pain

Hurts.

Nobody knows

What the message

Means.

Nobody knows

The power

Of screens.

Nobody knows

When fast is better

Then right.

Nobody knows

The end is better

At night.

Nobody knows

Justice

Is theater.

Nobody knows

An honest

Realtor.

Nobody knows

A good story is more true

Than a true story.

Nobody knows

The end of war

Is the end of glory.

Nobody knows

The villain behind the veil

Of kindness.

Nobody knows

Focus on the future

Is a form of blindness.

Nobody knows

Language is the child

Of fire.

Nobody knows

Truth begins

In the mind of a liar.

Nobody knows

Love begins

Now.

Nobody knows

Beauty

Is a vow.

Nobody knows

Dignity

Is expensive.

Nobody knows

Truth

Is offensive.

Nobody knows

Love is never

Simple.

Nobody knows

Holiness

Is outside the Temple.

Nobody knows

The heart

Of the human condition.

Nobody knows

Sometimes showing up

Is contrition.

Nobody knows

Status makes equality

Impossible.

Nobody knows

The gap between appearance and reality

Is uncrossable.

Nobody knows

Why God

Helps an athlete.

Nobody knows

The secret of success

Is self-deceit.

Nobody knows

Comedy

Is about love.

Nobody knows

When to look down

And when to look above.

Nobody knows

The moral dimension of music

Is good.

Nobody knows

There was only one road

In the yellow wood.

Nobody knows

What the hell

They are talking about.

Nobody knows

Who is insincere

And who is devout.

Nobody knows

The end of every career

Is silence.

Nobody knows

The deep human longing

For violence.

Nobody knows

How long love

Will last.

Nobody knows

That childhood

Is vast.

Nobody knows

Evolution is a string

Of mistakes.

Nobody knows

We are who we are

Through our heartbreaks.

Nobody knows

Secrets

Are passports.

Nobody knows

Language

Are imports.

Nobody knows

If self-knowledge

Makes any difference.

Nobody knows

The only true knowledge

Is ignorance.

Nobody knows

The future is backward

And upside down.

Nobody knows

The worst float

While the best drown.

Nobody knows

If the surgeon’s hands

Are steady.

Nobody knows

If they will ever

Be ready.

Nobody knows

What day of the week

They were born.

Nobody knows

How long is the journey

To mourn.

Nobody knows

That sickness

Is a separate country.

Nobody knows

Enlightenment comes

When you are hungry.

Nobody knows

Nothing used

Has ever been obsolete.

Nobody knows

Living in your hometown

Is bittersweet.

Nobody knows

The days

Are gods.

Nobody knows

How long

The odds.

Nobody knows

That talk with your father

Will be your last.

Nobody knows

The beauty of regret

Is in the past.

Nobody knows

Vermillion is a city

In South Dakota.

Nobody knows

How much is

An iota.

Nobody knows

Indigo is not

A color.

Nobody knows

Politics

Keeps getting duller.

Nobody knows

We live in a world

Of status.

Nobody knows

Kindness

Is gratis.

Nobody knows

Why they want

To be rich.

Nobody knows

The end of all sentiment

Is kitsch.

Nobody knows

Quiet

Is the ultimate antidote.

Nobody knows

Sex began

With the eukaryote.

Nobody knows

A friend

Is like a sparrow.

Nobody knows

Why order

Is an arrow.

Nobody knows

Peace

Is a miracle.

Nobody knows

History

Is lyrical.

Nobody knows

Australia is larger

Than the moon.

Nobody knows

The theme from the melody

From the tune.

Nobody knows

Which came first

The universe, consciousness, or mathematics.

Nobody knows

Marriage resembles

Aerobatics.

Nobody knows

If we get to say

Goodbye.

Nobody knows

The real reason

We cry.

Nobody knows

The true soul

Of a nation.

Nobody knows

When their train

Will leave the station.

Nobody knows

The future

Is not one but many.

Nobody knows

What is enough

In the land of plenty.

Nobody knows

Why prayer

Works.

Nobody knows

Where honesty

Lurks.

Nobody knows

When life

Will shatter.

Nobody knows

Loneliness

Doesn’t matter.

Nobody knows

A country exists

Only in the mind.

Nobody knows

The purpose of life

Is to be kind.

Nobody knows

The real value

Of money.

Nobody knows

What is really

Funny.

Nobody knows

Deep conversations

Are a waste of time.

Nobody knows

When they are in

Their prime.

Nobody knows

Friendship fades

Fast and slow.

Nobody knows

The secret of happiness

Is flow.

Nobody knows

Every library

Is a universe.

Nobody knows

The pleasure of a well-written

Non-sense verse.

Nobody knows

Every universe

Is a library.

Nobody knows

That all committed love

Is primary.

Nobody knows

Who

Will win.

Nobody knows

Why

They sin.

Nobody knows

There is only

One day.

Nobody knows

If they are

Straight or gay.

Nobody knows

It is better to be

Lucky than smart.

Nobody knows

The only true salvation

Comes through art.

Nobody knows

Beauty is a kind

Of Justice.

Nobody knows

What to trust

When they hear Trust Us.

Nobody knows

There is only

One moment.

Nobody knows

What the revolution

Will foment.

Nobody knows

Wisdom

Is a tuned string.

Nobody knows

What the day

Will bring.

Nobody knows

The truth of any

Marriage.

Nobody knows

If Death was in

The carriage.

Nobody knows

If they will die

Alone.

Nobody knows

What it takes

To atone.

Nobody knows

What they

Want.

Nobody knows

Food is

Detente.

Nobody knows

Who is

A friend.

Nobody knows

When this

Will end.

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Sunday Mornings with Vlad

Mon, 18 May 2026 01:49:57 +0000

In his mid-sixties,

Sometimes Art-Dealer,

Sometimes Importer,

World-weary eyes hovered

Over a three-day

Graying growth beard.

He glided up the path

Around the ruins

Of Erol Flynn’s old tennis court,

With Pritzi, his ever-vigilant

German Shepherd

By his side.

Sitting on a bench

In Runyon Canyon,

Overlooking a hazy

Blue-violet marine layer

Gently covering

West Hollywood,

Sitting on the bench

In the lotus position,

Floating above the city,

Looking at Pritzi,

“Friends are like characters in the novel of your life.

Some are there for only a chapter or two, others are there until the end.”

Leaning back on the bench, sighing,

“Hollywood can play the part

Of the abusive boyfriend,

Beating you to a bloody pulp, then

Charming its way back into your heart because

You love the idea of it.”

Los Angeles spread out before them

Like a stretched canvas,

“Everyone in this town

Has been doing the same thing for over a hundred years.

Everyone is trying to find one well, just one well to come in,

That will turn their desert dreams into an oasis.”

Vlad got up with Pritzi

And the two of them walked

Up around a little-known trail,

As they came upon a series of rusted steel structures,

The back supports of the old Hollywoodland sign,

Covered in hill growth.

Both of them stared

At the steel structures,

“There is something sacred about ruins,

There is something significant about failure,

About decay and death, in the same way

Getting old is significant; getting old is sacred.

We do not honor ruins in this town.

We cover them up,

We shun them, we shun them

And shunning them

We shun the deepest

Part of ourselves.”

They walked back down to their bench

As Vlad looked at Pritzi,

“Anyone not trying to make Art is

Making a commodity.

And there’s nothing wrong with commodities,

It’s just you cannot be a whole human being without Art.

The question is,

Is anyone still interested in making Art

Rather than making commodities?

The question is,

Is anyone still interested in being

A whole human being?”

The sun was getting hot.

Vlad stood up, holding Pritzi’s leash,

Looking far off to West LA and the beach,

“The blessedness and the curse of this town is that there is no time.

Blessed because without time, we live in eternity.

Cursed because without time, we have no idea who we are.”

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The Schmo

Fri, 15 May 2026 22:18:58 +0000

He said it aloud,

Matter of fact;

“I’m just a schmo”.

And with that,

The axis of the city turned

Away from his creative self,

Away from his power,

Away from his youthful visions

Like the winter axis turning away from the sun,

Like a beggar knocking on a church door that never opens,

Like a wife who has fallen out of love with her husband.

He’s just a schmo,

Biting into a half-wet pastrami on rye.

He’s just a schmo,

Being pushed out of the subway

By the rush of commuters.

He’s just a schmo,

Looking up at his office building.

He’s just a schmo,

Breathing, waiting in line.

He’s just a schmo,

Arguing with the retail saleswoman

About returning a work shirt he bought six months ago.

He’s just a schmo,

Overwhelmed by the enormity

Of the city.

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Choosing

Mon, 11 May 2026 23:49:24 +0000

We keep choosing

And this is what we get;

Vacant offices and ghost exchanges,

Avatars of buyer personas

Walking through malls like vast catacombs

Waiting to be resurrected by a flash sale.

The same joke is told everywhere we go,

Like personalized license plates,

The same meme copied like fractals

Down the digital abyss, spilling

Into the real, making copies

Of people like fractals down the human abyss.

The same warmed-up banana bread

In every city, the same vague notions

Of fame blurring into trust.

The same hotel lobbies, the same

Smile for the same family photo

On the same vacation we all take.

And yet, we’ve never had it so good,

Never has it been easier

To find your people, nevermind

Your people are disembodied like air bubbles at the bottom of the sea,

Never has there been so much knowledge readily available,

Nevermind the lies, the ignorance, and the preference for the banal.

Never have we been able to purchase more

Cheaper, faster, better stuff

Filling our houses with everything we want, nevermind

We have no idea what we really want.

Never have our lives been

Easier, simpler, bigger, safer,

Nevermind the darkest part of ourselves

Elected like our shadow self

Exposed in the stage lights of the public theater,

Suddenly, everything we secretly desired

Becomes government policy as the darkened audience

Of our democratic psyche laughs and applauds,

As workers are kidnapped off the streets,

Thrown into the back of black minivans,

Masked police execute citizens

Because they didn’t say please,

And we keep telling ourselves

We've never had it so good.

We keep telling ourselves

There will always be more money,

We keep telling ourselves

To keep choosing,

We keep telling ourselves

This is what we get.

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This is the real city- I

Mon, 11 May 2026 23:39:07 +0000

This is the real city

Of walking from Queens to downtown

For an interview, in mid-August, because

You don’t have enough money for subway fare.

Walking in a cheap suit

Rotting off your sweating frame,

Going to put on a show

For the chance of money.

The air is as thick as cheesecake,

That stings your eyes

With the smell of garbage and street meat,

With gray dust floating everywhere like a dirty aquarium.

And on the way back,

After the obligatory handshake

And the dispiriting “we’ll be in touch”,

Walking back to the land of the plastic bag stuck in a tree,

The darkest apartment in Queens,

The half-empty streets and the Polish market,

Walking back,

You see your shadowy reflection

In black marble

In front of Chase Manhattan Bank

Looking back at you like your half-dead self

Checking you out from the murky beyond.

Walking uptown

Past open retail stores

Where a blast of air conditioning

Comes down your neck as kindness.

Walking through Times Square,

You loosen your tie,

You come upon a huckster’s paradise;

The kind of life you should be living,

Refreshing, in control, bold.

A hurricane of images and video

Flying around the vortex, and

In the middle, you approach a glass booth,

A wind tunnel with money flying around

Like the images circulating above.

A spokesmodel stands next to the glass booth

In a short red dress, her white legs

As remote and inviting as a mannequin’s,

Her lips, so red and full of lipstick,

Like two strawberries

Pressed together.

On the other side of the booth

A salesman wearing a headset microphone,

Telling jokes to the crowd, inviting you

To parktake, just sign your name,

Walk into the cool air-conditioned booth,

As beads of sweat pour off your bald head,

Just walk in and grab as much cash as you can,

Sign your name, walk in,

When the money starts flying,

Jump around, reaching, ever reaching

For all that cheddar,

That loot, that scratch.

Your eyes, large as golfballs

Staring at the booth,

Sweat pouring down your face,

The salesman smiles, gestures to the model,

She claps and cheers you on

To go in, sign your name,

Save yourself, save yourself,

Save yourself;

All you need to do

Is sign your name,

Walk in

And save your Self.

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An Unofficial Reunion

Mon, 11 May 2026 16:14:18 +0000

There we were, the two of us

Free again like first semester freshman year,

Free in the city, free

For the weekend, free from our lives.

With the city open,

With its constellation of lights,

The Boston skyline beckoned, in the air

Briny waves of beer, seafood, seagulls, and the sorrowful joys of graduation.

With long strides

We walked into Faneuil Hall,

Walked into an unseasonably warm May night,

Walked into being nineteen again,

When possibilities glittered around us

Like a string of lights connected to the crowds,

Encircled by friends upon friends

And every direction was somewhere we wanted to go.

Going, we went to Fenway,

Making our way to the T,

Everything was the same,

Same Government Center,

Same green and brown tiles,

Same musty stale warm air

Blowing up from the station,

Same trolleys, same accordion doors on the trains,

Same grinding, squeaking wheels on the track,

Same ground-level platform where we passed out on the benches,

Same howling under the fluorescent lights,

Same iridescent delusions and drink.

We came out at Kenmore Square,

Broad curving space like a stage set,

Memories double-exposed over where the Pizza Pad,

The Rathskellar and the Barnes and Noble used to be.

We merged into streams of Red Sox hats and jerseys,

Flowing up Brookline Avenue, crossing Commonwealth Avenue,

Sidewalks packed, pot smoke passing through us like ghosts,

Carried along a river of fans entering the great returning.

The broad structure of Fenway revealed itself

Like happening upon the Collusium

Down the Via Dei Serpenti;

A drift of sparrows flitted over Newbury Street,

Championship flags fluttered in the wind,

The wind, mercifully calm,

Like a napping drunkard,

Waiting until the cold to turn mean.

Walking through turnstiles,

Through vaulted brick arches,

Through tunnels of monster green under the stands,

To our seats between home plate and first base.

The panorama of Fenway unfurled

Like a scripture scroll, arc of fans

Stretching around the infield, scholars of the game studying

The layered sounds and smells,

The awe of the open space,

The hallowed brown of the dirt,

The purity and rationalism of the white baselines,

The supernatural cross-hatching greens of the outfield,

Like playing a game in a cemetery,

Bases like grave markers,

Ghosts in the infield,

By turns sacred, by turns profane,

Observing the mechanics of the universe,

The secret language signaling from third to home,

The secret machinations of the bullpen,

Oriented towards greater things in this world.

The game let out, and we walked down Beacon Street,

Stood on the corner of Park Drive

And stared up at our old apartment buildings,

Our first real apartments off campus.

Remembering the September sun

All those years ago, the warm glow

Of being on our own, the music

Of our twenty-year-old voices

Mixing together in the swirl and twinkle lights

Of apartment living, voices

Carrying the songs of a lost world,

Voices laughing.

Walking up Park Drive, we crossed Beacon Street,

Over St. Mary’s Bridge and onto the main campus,

T’s rumbled along passed each other,

Dinging as they crossed over the intersections in front of Marsh Chapel.

Commonwealth Avenue spread out before us

Like a little world from 1957, subversive poets smoking

In sport jackets and ties with movie star eyes,

And depressive brains behind smart-looking glasses.

We turned right and walked over to the Dug Out,

Downstairs to the main bar, found a small

Golden table tucked in a bay window

And clinked our glasses of beer.

He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses

On his large intellectual nose,

Inhaling the intellectual vapors

Of the bar and proposed a question;

I inhaled a swig of beer

And before I could swallow or answer,

A cough erupted from my lungs

And the beer sprayed across his wire-rimmed glasses and large intellectual nose.

Stunned silence

As the question hung in the air

And I sheepishly gathered paper towels

Cleaning the table and his beer-splattered face.

He cleaned his glasses,

Looked up smiling mischievously and

We both knew,

We were back.

Back from the world of personas

Where we are thrown daily into monstrous chasms,

Falling through failure, falling

From one uncomfortable dimension to another,

Back in the full bloom of senior year,

In the garden of our youth, in the paradise of an old friend,

Back to the glittering possibilities of the city,

Back to the question;

Of course, the universe folds back on itself

Like a saddle, like memory.

Of course, there are multiple universes,

Each exactly the same except for the color of our eyes.

And yes, the eyes of every beautiful woman

Are a portal to a glamorous life,

And yes, all civilization is just a moment in time,

Like our childhoods.

But the end of every friendship is a death,

Sometimes the death is a catastrophe, like the collapse of a civilization,

Sometimes the death is part of an unmarked mass grave,

Where memory is a disembodied ghost, living homeless in an underworld of neglect.

Sometimes the death haunts us like a lost wallet,

Wandering the city in a futile search for honesty,

Where we mourn the loss of cancelling the credit cards

But then move on with our lives the next day.

III

Leaving the Dug Out

Into the perfect Boston night air,

Chatting with smokers

On the sidewalk.

Smoke clouds floated into traffic on Comm Ave,

Split in half by passing cars,

Then trespassed through the metal fence

Next to the T tracks.

Smoke clouds diffused the floodlights

On the corner of Warren Towers,

Like the hazy stratos of smoke clouds

Filling dorm rooms on the seventeenth floor,

Walking down Commonwealth

Passed the glass entrance and X-shaped escalators,

Passed the convenience store

Where I bought my first pack of cigarettes,

Looking up to the windows,

Where we gazed out as Nor’Eastors

Blanketed the city in snow

And we listened to Cottontail by Ella Fitzgerald

And spoke of absolutes

While playing hearts,

And flinched to the sound

Of a chair breaking a window.

Opening the door to the room,

Seeing the jagged shards still hanging

Within the window frame,

The warm May city wind blowing in.

The pale blue ghost faces of those who saw him

Turn back in a flash of determined bloodshot black eyes,

Run across the bed, over the desk, and jump

Through the open window.

Peering through the transom, through broken panes,

To the flood lights illuminating his body, on the roof of the garage, fourteen floors below,

Wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with two red spots soaked through

Where his lungs used to be.

Close to where we were

Continuing on Commonwealth

Passed the Metcalf Science Center,

Where the sculpture of electrons colliding still stands,

To 580 Commonwealth Avenue

Where the T flows underground,

Just before Commonwealth merges with Beacon

Back into Kenmore Square.

This was where it all ended,

Where campus faded into the streets

And the city began,

Where we said our goodbyes

To sacred bonds scattered from a farewell,

To tender remembrances

Summoning ancient voices to return,

To the end we didn’t know was the end until it all ended.

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The Human Core - Poem , The City

The Gallerist

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The Publisher- I

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Sunday Mornings with Vlad

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The Schmo

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Choosing

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This is the real city- I

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An Unofficial Reunion

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