Let Me Please Look Into My Window, poem by Gerald Stern

LET ME PLEASE LOOK INTO MY WINDOW
by Gerald Stern

Let me please look into my window on 103rd Street one more time—
without crying, without tearing the satin, without touching
the white face, without straightening the tie or crumpling the flower.

Let me walk up Broadway past Zak’s, past the Melody Fruit Store,
past Stein’s Eyes, past the New Moon Inn, past the Olympia.

Let me leave quietly by Gate 29
and fall asleep as we pull away from the ramp
into the tunnel.

Let me wake up happy, let me know where I am, let me lie still,
as we turn left, as we cross the water, as we leave the light
***
“Let Me Please Look Into My Window” appears in Gerald Stern‘s collection This Time: New and Selected Poems © W.W. Norton & Co., 1998, winner of the National Book Award for poetry. Find the book at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1925,  Gerald Stern studied at the University of Pittsburgh (BA, 1947) and Columbia University (MA., in 1949). His work became widely recognized after the 1977 publication of Lucky Life,  that year’s Lamont Poetry Selection, and of a series of essays on writing poetry in American Poetry Review. He has received many prestigious awards for his writing, including the 1996 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the 1998 National Book Award for This Time: New and Selected Poems, and the 2012 Library of Congress Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Award for Early Collected Poems: 1965-1992. He was Poet Laureate of New Jersey from 2000-2002 and received the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2005. Since 2006, Stern has been a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. 

Photo: 103rd St. windows

Subway Rush Hour, poem by Langston Hughes

A while back, I said, “I’m gonna pop some tags” (to quote “Thrift Shop,” a humorous/profane song by blond rapper Macklemore — a tune with over 400 million views on youtube), so I went to my local Goodwill store and for $2.99 snagged a pristine copy of POEMS OF NEW YORK (Everyman’s Library, 2002), a collection of 125 poems about Gotham’s many facets. 

Here’s a poem from the anthology — part of the Everyman Library’s Pocket Poet Series — a beautiful hardcover book, with gorgeous photos on the dust jacket, and a threaded gold bookmark.

SUBWAY RUSH HOUR
by Langston Hughes

Mingled
breath and smell
so close
mingled
black and white
so near
no room for fear. 

###

So pay a visit to your local thrift shop this week — most of these operations benefit worthy causes — and pop some tags. You never know what you’ll find.

Let Me Please Look Into My Window, poem by Gerald Stern

LET ME PLEASE LOOK INTO MY WINDOW
by Gerald Stern

Let me please look into my window on 103rd Street one more time—
without crying, without tearing the satin, without touching
the white face, without straightening the tie or crumpling the flower.

Let me walk up Broadway past Zak’s, past the Melody Fruit Store,
past Stein’s Eyes, past the New Moon Inn, past the Olympia.

Let me leave quietly by Gate 29
and fall asleep as we pull away from the ramp
into the tunnel.

Let me wake up happy, let me know where I am, let me lie still,
as we turn left, as we cross the water, as we leave the light

…“Let Me Please Look Into My Window” appears in Gerald Stern‘s collection This Time: New and Selected Poems © W.W. Norton & Co., 1998, winner of the National Book Award for poetry. Find the book at Amazon.com.

Photo: 103rd St. windows

Subway Rush Hour, Poem by Langston Hughes

A few days ago, I said, “I’m gonna pop some tags” (to quote “Thrift Shop,” a humorous/profane song by blond rapper Macklemore — a tune with over 250 million views on youtube), so I went to my local Goodwill store and for $2.99 snagged a pristine copy of POEMS OF NEW YORK (Everyman’s Library, 2002), a collection of 125 poems about Gotham’s many facets. 

Here’s a poem from the anthology — part of the Everyman Library’s Pocket Poet Series — a beautiful hardcover book, with gorgeous photos on the dust jacket, and a threaded gold bookmark.

SUBWAY RUSH HOUR
by Langston Hughes

Mingled
breath and smell
so close
mingled
black and white
so near
no room for fear. 

###

So pay a visit to your local thrift shop this week — most of these operations benefit worthy causes — and pop some tags. You never know what you’ll find.