The curtain unfurls and the musical begins,
The underground roars kaboom, kaboom
Costumes and masks weave their way through hurtling yellow
trains
Beaded knots and broken hearts, brief-cases and painted-over
easels
I-phones and straightened hair, accents melting into impromptu
conversations
The stage clears…
An ice-cream truck parked in the middle of Central Park
Shorts, shades and picnics,
The resilient joggers run to a fitness trainer
On a tv show, who keeps time, kaboom, kaboom
That noise again. The ghostly steel scrapers of power
Silently dance on a still pond covered in fall colours
A pair of lovers lean against an iron railing locked in an
endless embrace
kissing little crevices and moles on arms and legs
Chinese dolls with weathered hands and my grandmother’s silver
hair
Bargain with many camera’d tourists
A few coins drop into a pool, a few into a guitar case, a few in
a slot machine
The stage clears … that sound again, kaboom , kaboom
A Show within a show, The Rock Of Ages- plays tribute
To that great 80’s notion called the lust for life and then
A recently found old friend in a jalapeno cocktail pitcher
As the naked man strums his guitar, kissing mid-western tourists
@Times Square
The stage clears and a ballerina dances across an old museum
She is a dream, she is sculpted, she is a billboard, she is the
muse, she is art
Donated by merchants and bankers, a tear kisses a damask cheek
and says
Here he is with his lilies and his yellows and his blue leaves
and then
Right next to him that terrifying silent scream
The stage spins around, an old musty basement in a bottle of
jazz,
A trickle of happiness running down a frosted glass of whiskied
laughter
Fingers wrapped around melted artichoke pizza,
The comedian insults four Indian girls into a little corner
While an Ethiopian beauty rescues them with mulled wine
and her infinite black eyes
The Stage of New York welcomes actors from across the world
To play themselves in the unfolding drama of a city
whose underground roars Kaboom , kaboom
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