About-Poems-by-New-Yorkers-Madeline-Schwartzmen1-153x10241.

Writer, filmmaker,
native New Yorker,
student of subway,
poem uncorker.

 

2.

Raw down here.
Harsh fluorescent light.
Unconscious tunnel.
Rats take flight.

Is the New York mind a collective?
Is the fear and love merging all night?
Do the depths of the earth open floodgates?
Will your passion and words be my plight?

 

3.

I had eureka moment,
just like Henri Poincaré,
ask a stranger: write a poem
got six in just one day.

Made a film called Snow Day
starring Grandma on the B,
Metro Tango filmed in Paris,
that one’s starring me.

Work as a professor at
two universities,
my book about the senses
full of strange perversities.

Stand clear the closing door
when riding on the C
if I ask you nicely please do
write a poem for me.

 

4.

I am so touched
By New York City writers, agreeing
with a smile and
the inevitable, “But I
don’t know how to write
a poem,”
and then easing into
telling a stranger
about a life
or a day,
a mother
or lover.

 

People are
beautiful,
so sweet,
and so deep.