claremont park (the bronx)
by Urayoán Noel

                         

claremont park     ¿cuál monte claro?     es claro monte     although any amount of
clarity     is relative     who claims the clarity     in these foggy climes?     there's the 
climate change inside     anticlimactic      like the denouement     of my neurons in
free fall     free speech     tortured lesson     there is no free for all     there is no
festooning of the city     at least not right now     only the auto-tuning     only the
airplanes overhead     only the midnights in mid-flight     the flights that brought
so many people here     from unhomely homelands     to these racquetball courts
for what city can there be without a racket     who can explain the city     without
airplanes overhead     even in claremont park     my voice still needs a spark
something more than eating     cuchifritos with a spork     there must be other perks
in these contiguous shores     there must be spores     there must be stamens
there must be bark     at the moon     at the passersby     from suspension bridges
at the outlet malls     in the suburbs we all inhabit     the caresses we inhibit     just
texting our digits     into our smartphones     and heading home     to huddle under
covers     with lovers also frigid     naming the frauds of the self     we see in the
mirror     no one's demurer than me     in my yellow knit cap     okay so maybe i
exaggerate     isn't hyperbole what builds a city?     a poet i used to like once wrote
“the bronx? no thonx!”     i call that poet “¡cabronx!”     you thought you owned the 
city     but it devoured you     spit out your corpse as mulch     from its cement gulch
the remnants of your culture     turned to dust     for future angels     the ones who 
will occupy this park     or whatever's on these grounds     a hundred years from now
the ones who can survive     the eternal noise of air traffic overhead     we're halfway
into march     and i've marched halfway through the park     patches of snow     
fighting it out with the incipient green     the groan of spring     ¿qué te digo?     ya 
pronto se va a poner bonito     ya pronto vamo' a comer boniato     en la barbacoa 
con la macacoa     y la cocolería llena de algarabía     sonando por las bocinas     de 
las esquinas     de tus colinas     where todo rima or casi casi     casi casi écfrasis
everything almost rhymes     in your climes     in these times     we are all somehow 
still sublime     beautiful in out stillness     in our illness     of walking in place     with 
home in our hoodies     and our families     as ringtones on our phones     down with 
another mercurochrome winter!     down with the scattershot spambot!     the 
photoshop approach to urban renewal     that turns every art deco jewel     into a
failed co-op     i'm okay with destruction     with disruption     if it's done from within
with awareness of the self     as it fissures and flails     all the ways that it fails     i'm 
okay with singing     tear the roof off the sucker     tear the roof off the sucker
tear the roof off the...     (sumtin sumtin)     with a bachata or dembow beat     as 
long as we let     the painful beauty of our streets     work its way through us     i
guess i'm an adult viewfinder     a bumpy grindr     a snap chatterbox     whose vlogs 
are never erased     recorded forever and circulated     on the social networks of the
elsewhere     the no longer here     the ether that owns us      that exceeds these 
dying breeds     i need enough remarks     to make my way     back to the other side 
of the park     that's the trouble     with improvising     you always end up capsizing
such was the fate of your eyes     on the beach that evening     but i won't say more 
about that     now speech is leaving me     i can't reach that feeling     i can't teach 
myself     to preserve the meaning     it will disappear     become blurry     no longer 
clear     something no one can declare     a bodily mark     haunting my every step
through claremont park     i'm not saying i could claim a spark     i'm not saying 
there's an epic project here     in these improvisations     the breeze and its 
cessation     i'm not saying there's a lyric here either     a panegyric on urban space
a poem with a capital p     or even some pounding drum and bass     there's nothing
here but walking     working my way to the depths     one erratic step at a time
(that wasn't planned     i almost fell there     into the quicksand     from which i came)
i'm not the selfsame     i'm not the one who wrote poems     hoping to be redeemed 
through laughter     looking for an irony     that could map our disaster     i don't
know what i'm looking for now     but i don't mean that sentimentally     just in the 
rudimentary sense     elementary perhaps     my dear walkman for the digital age
i've turned the page     into clickbait     but i still believe in print     in language as 
changeable     as exchanged     in bargain basement rates     i still believe in a poem
that can map these states      while acknowledging we're all stateless     weightless in
the expanse of city     i'm working my way through the pain     and even if it sounds
new-agey     like a cheap attempt at poetic resolution     before my battery dies
and you turn your digital eyes     to other stimuli     let me say that working through
that painbeauty painbeauty painbeauty painbeauty painbeauty painbeauty
painbeautypain     is its own kind of freedom     freedom from  the very screen     that
names my body     the freedom of speaking     once there's nothing left to say     the
freedom of somehow     no way     the freedom to leave the park     to face up to the
dark     to erase the trademark     from the wrinkles on my face     to name a place
the bronx     or a company my fresh shirt     to let there be no doubt     that there's
always more chinese food to take out     to show off your skills at the bar and grill
to take care of two kinds of cleaning at once     the clothes and the soul     to get all 
your needs met     the promise of neoliberal selfhood     income tax     internet     
notary     color copies     its own kind of free market      its own kind of freedom
as remarkable as the remarks we never make     at the fried chicken places at 4am     
where they recognize our faces     liquor stores     and barber shops     and
international markets     and delis of the smelly and not so smelly kind     and repair 
centers i'll never enter     what is the hardware of my stride?     who plays ball on
these fields?     what happens when our bodies yield     surrendering to space?     
this song is for     all the despised bodies     of which i have been one      even in all
my privilege     i'm dredging the lake of language     to see what i come up with     
but i missed the bus     to the george washington bridge     no fort lee for me tonight
no jersey in my shores     just me     the good old digital harridan     of sheridan 
avenue      speaking into a phone     i almost own     or it owns me