From the Banks of Brook Avenue

By W.R. Rodriguez

From the Banks of Brook Avenue offers a humorous, ironic, passionate, and vivid exploration of the cityscape. It was awarded First Prize for Poetry in the North Street Book Prize, a competition for self-published books which is sponsored by Winning Writers.

Subways, bridges, streets, public schools, parking meters, sewers, buses, baseball: these are some of the subjects explored by W. R. Rodriguez who has both a sense of history and a keen perception of the ordinary.

A large threatening man tapping knees on the IRT, a bus running over a pigeon, a dog chasing a broken car which is being pushed by a man, a woman dropping a flower pot on a mugger’s head, and other strange but true events combine with tributes to the Triborough Bridge, the Third Avenue El, and George Washington.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.R. Rodriguez
• Release date: Sep 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310744402

W.R. Rodriguez

W.R. Rodriguez grew up in the Bronx where he worked as a bootblack in the family shoe shine parlor. He moved to Madison where he earned an M.A. in English and taught high school for over thirty years. The urban environment has been a major source of his writing: “Although I left The Bronx decades ago, it has not left me. To give ironic tribute to the Romantics, I regard the streets and tenements as worthy subjects of art. I enjoy creating poetry from my memories of people, places, and events, as well as from research and imagination. Also, I want my poems to work on the page and to have a strong voice if read aloud.”His poetry has appeared in magazines such as Abraxas and Epoch, and in anthologies such as The Party Train, Welcome to Your Life, and Editor’s Choice III. Articles about his family’s experience in The Bronx were published in The Bronx County Historical Society Journal.W.R. Rodriguez is the author of several books of poetry. His latest, from the banks of brook avenue, is an evolution of the work he began in the shoe shine parlor poems et al and developed in concrete pastures of the beautiful bronx.

Book preview

w r rodriguez

zeugpress: smashwords edition

Dedicated to Mike Peterson, in gratitude for his technical advice and support of my publication projects over the decades.

Acknowledgments:

Poems from this book previously appeared in the following magazines and anthologies: And Justice For All; The Bronx County Historical Society Journal; Connections: New York City Bridges in Poetry; Dusty Dog; The Glacier Stopped Here: an anthology of poems by Dane County writers; Live Lines: Is There a Place for Poetry in Your World; North Coast Review; POETS on the line; The Prose Poem: An International Journal; The Spirit That Moves Us; Tokens: Contemporary Poetry of the Subway; Welcome to Your Life: Writings from the Heart of Young America; You Are Here: New York City Streets in Poetry; and Z Miscellaneous. The short poem, genghis khan, by w r rodriguez, previously appeared in Wormwood Review. It serves as the basis for yankee kitchen.

Cover Photo: Glass Clouds by Rob Rodriguez

© 2015 w r rodriguez

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9781310744402

Zeugpress: Smashwords Edition

Contents

Title page

Copyright page

I

forbidden places

a moon full and cold

just another new york city subway near death experience

yankee kitchen

the beach beneath the bridge

after seeing night of the living dead

on the coping

liberation: the brook avenue parking meter quartet

justice

she is leaving but

what could have more impact than a bus

plaza of the undented turtle

avenue b, 14th street, looking south

the push and break and chase of it

II

the third avenue el

standing upon the fordham road bridge

halloween

ne cede malis: poem for the seal of the borough of the bronx

washington comes to visit

grandfather: a photograph

bootblacks on the loose

al

p.s. 43

cypress avenue

skully

the tire man

a small but perfect world

the fountain of youth

III

welcome to the mainland

america’s favorite pastime

yankee fan

the gambling leaguers

lost again on old subways

randall’s island

triborough bridge: suspension

triborough bridge: stasis

triborough bridge: genesis

triborough bridge: kinesis

astoria park

from the banks of brook avenue

Bibliography: Previous Publications

I

…a wholly new ordering

of ordinary

affairs.

forbidden places

in all the forbidden places

like round the corner

and too far up the block

and up and down the you’ll fall from it fire escape

and across the bad boy bad girl rooftops

of fertile pigeons and antenna thieves

through the sinister shadows of subway stations

and beware of dogs junkies

and the drunken super

basements

through the unexplored side streets of childhood

my mind wanders

that musk of the living

and dying tenement compels me

the gloom of alley and airshaft

the glow of sunlight on brick

i must navigate asphalt rivers

i must trek the broken glass

graffitied mainland to reach

the cement heart of the interior

and i will not return

i am the great explorer forever lost

in the concrete wilderness

i will discover america

flowering in the rubble

a moon full and cold

there was a moon full and cold

and i was a child in the big wide

unwanderable world

kept safe by my parents and warm

while the radiator with its ancient scales

of cracked paint hissed like a tame dragon

through the green forests

and brown fields of footworn linoleum

plastic soldiers advanced from their beachhead

to conquer the living room or to die in glorious battle

cowboys and indians skirmished at fort apache

alien spacecraft landed and robots ran amok

gallant knights with british accents

rode forth from castle walls to great adventure

fighting firebreathing worms and other strange creatures

so the countryside would be safe for travelers

and a child might sleep in