October 25, 2021 - All the cars on Allen Street turn left at the same time by Jordan Myers
All the cars on Allen Street turn left at the same time. Mid-day, the light switches from red to green and a gust of wind moves through the leaves of a tree that stretches above the bike lane. The city has its own breath, never steady but always there. A box truck honks its horn twice. A man in a white tank-top and black basketball shorts steps out onto his fire escape: yawns, stretches, and reaches into his pocket ––– cigarettes and a lighter. He leans against the rail and glances uptown for a while. Police sirens. A woman in a red blouse with jeans and white heels tries hailing a cab ––– no luck, she ties her hair up behind her, pauses, then goes at it again . . . a yellow taxi pulls up beside her. She gets in. They drive away.
October 24, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
It is a soft sort of fall - crisp and cool and casually perfect like the time we ran away, caught a flight between semesters and walked through the Gothic Quarter, Gaudí on our minds alongside an urge to go everywhere. We shared a small hostel room looking over La Rambla and spent six days roaming, succumbing to wine and cigarettes in quiet corners where the only sound seeping out into the night came from a guitar whose tune filled every crevice of the Quarter, stubborn strumming persisting through church walls, echoing out of small cracks in the stone - and somehow when I take a deep breath here in Brooklyn, I can smell Barcelona in the air.
October 23, 2021 by Jordan Myers
Essex
Serve & volley: l
oads of topspin and straight down the T, you toss the ball in the air, swing as hard as you can, then sprint toward the net. Watch, I’m standing at the baseline ––– catching the ball on the rise, and sending it back just as fast. Fifteen love, five all.
October 21, 2021 - One thousand dreams by Jordan Myers
The third time we met you suggested I bring my bike to Stuyvesant Square Park on a Saturday morning in October. You told me to trust you: the city would be in bloom, and we could sit down for a while and talk. The night before I stood out on the fire escape for thirty minutes or so ––– only watching the moon. An hour later when I went to bed, I fell asleep right away. One thousand dreams, sunlight and flowers.
October 20, 2021 - Windows open & the cold October air by Jordan Myers
First thing in the morning, we fall out of bed
& rumble around the apartment: hot water /
green tea / windows open & the cold October air
floods into the place. Sunlight & bluebirds circle
the fire escape, they chirp and a fog horn goes off.
We breathe our best Manhattan breaths in the autumn
light, focused and exact like a symphony / a long siren,
then the tea kettle cries out. I walk over to the stove,
you linger for a while / no words by the window’s light.
October 19, 2021 - dusk / silence by Jordan Myers
Night shadows glowing throughout the city
at dawn / small embers of the autumn still,
holding their cadence, whispering a quiet
wink at the world: dusk / silence, then day
October 18, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
There is a chill in the air that has been missing for a long time. Always worth the wait, I think, as steel toed boots meet cold concrete, a scattering of frail, freshly turned leaves left in their wake. The city feels more awake in the fall. October opens its eyes and suddenly there is sound in every step - a consistent crunch that echoes out into crisp air. And the trees, they move so wildly, the way they’re supposed to, stubborn wind wearing them out like a ritual readying for the still, sleepy winter ahead.
October 14, 2021 by Jordan Myers
A man in a grey tank-top with navy cargo shorts, sixties ––– with white hair, wearing in-line skates, a helmet, shoulder pads and knee pads, was practicing yesterday between the basketball courts of Dewitt Clinton Park. He had lined up at least thirty-five very small orange cones, north to south, alongside the court. Methodically, moment-by-moment, he’d place one foot in front of the other, and together, like magic, his feet would weave in between the cones as he’d move down the line ––– forward and then backwards, forward and then backwards, forward and then backwards, again and again. It’s always a treat to watch such precision and focus up close.
October 12, 2021 - Frisson Espresso (326 w. 47th) by Jordan Myers
A wheatgrass shot from Frisson Espresso sets you back $4.00. They’ll hand it to you in a small glass beaker, wider than a test tube and only a little taller than a shot glass. It does not go down smooth. I did not drink the concentrated greens like a regular shot ––– all in one swooping gulp, but a little at a time: a fourth, a few moments break, one-half, followed by a three or four minute interlude, and then the final quarter. I sat at the table outside, a narrow though almost cozy set-up: just two chairs and a table on a landing a little away from the sidewalk out-front. Across 47th Street children were throwing rubber dodgeballs at each other and laughing outside of P.S. 212, the Professional Performing Arts High School.
October 10, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
At one point, during the days of all this repetitive rain, I took my time walking home and watched the river rise, its surface blurred and trembling like a live mosaic, and through the downpour my dress became armor, hanging heavy on my skin like chainlink as I followed the water well into night.
October 9, 2021 - Floral morning by Jordan Myers
Floral morning. Cityscapes. New look venue and open seasons. New horizons + songs in the distance
coming closer. One thousand sighs of relief. A good trip away from the city for a while. The sound
of the sun setting. All that it takes to sit down and write at a table in a cafe on a Saturday in a foreign
country three hours before the tour. The absence of longing. Freedom from longing. No longing.
No lies. A full tank of gas and tomato soup with salt and cracked pepper potato chips. Hear me out.
No screaming, just whispers. Just the night. Only the quiet of the night. Just one night. Only tonight.
A voice. A silent cough drop. Night confessionals. Starlight lady. Lady starlight. A yellow-lit tunnel
through the mountains heading west. Heading west. West. The sound of a helicopter in the distance
getting closer. Everyone chasing everyone else. Seventeenth Street and Sixth Avenue at 8:26pm. The
Hudson River. Narragansett Lager and crab cakes with three eggs scrambled with potatoes and toast
on a Tuesday morning / looking out across the yard at the rain. The grass: green, the month: October.
October 8, 2021 - From our archives (April 10, 2020) “I used to dream of long stretches of I-70 across Kansas and into Colorado” by Jordan Myers
We went for a drive and you kept laughing. I changed into golden toe socks and we started breathing more deeply. We stopped often and sat on top of the car and looked out at the horizon. We pulled into a rest stop and caught the sunrise. We got back in the car and drove fifteen more miles before stopping again for coffee. The sunlight was everywhere. We rolled the windows down. I used to dream about long stretches of I-70 across Kansas and into Colorado. The highway stretches all the way across Ohio, all the way across Indiana. The highway stretches all the way. You had this funny story that you kept telling about the Adirondacks; and it felt like we'd never get there –––– we left from so far west. It was really far west. We left from the west and drove all the way to the east.
October 7, 2021 - Dewitt Clinton Park by Jordan Myers
Eleventh Avenue’s bike lane in front of Dewitt Clinton Park (w. 52nd - w 54th), offers one of the most serene views available within the middle-western part of Manhattan. Within the park, closest to the bike lane, there’s a ball-field of turf grass, which is large and expansive.
This afternoon, students from MLK High School’s soccer team played a small-sided scrimmage on the field (north to south), as I walked by around five-thirty. One side wore light blue pennies by Adidas, and the other side wore the same, though bright construction neon green.
Beyond the park’s ball-field there are handball courts, basketball courts, a small dog park, as well as a children’s playground. On any given day, especially at the height of the park’s peak hours –––– after work or school, from 3pm until nightfall, many different people will be doing many different things: yoga, boxing, ring around the rosie, calisthenics, meditation, running, sprinting, jogging; walking and talking; standing and talking; standing, talking.
From time to time, most often on Fridays, a band that plays salsa music will practice in a space behind and between the basketball and handball courts, providing a soundtrack for the park’s visitors. Once, not very long ago, I found myself hitting tennis balls against the wall of one of the handball courts on a Friday evening. The sound of the band’s saxophone and trombone and drums made it feel as though I was warming up for a match somewhere along the coast of Chile, or one of the islands of Central America. It was a hot and humid night in July, and the park was alive. No band today. Just soccer practice and moms and dads walking around the ball-field with their sons and daughters for a little while after school, and before dinner.
