© 2005 Iris N. Schwartz
Iris N. Schwartz
Iris N. Schwartz is a fiction writer and a poet, celebrating the recent release (July 2006) of "Awakened: Poetry by Madeline Artenberg, Poetry by Iris N Schwartz" from Rogue Scholars Press.
Her short story “Hedonics” is included in the fall 2005 anthology Stirring Up A Storm (Thunder's Mouth Press 2005). Other recent credits: her novella The Fruits of Her Labors is anthologized in That’s Amore! (Magic CarpetBooks 2004), and “The Dairy Kings” is in Hot Women’s Erotica (Avalon 2005). .
She has had poetry anthologized in An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 (Regent Press 2002), and in the UK-based Listening to the Birth of Crystals (Paula Brown Publishing 2003). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in print and on-line publications such as Alimentum, Curare, Ducts, Erbacce, Vernacular, and other reviews with titles much easier to pronounce.
Iris welcomes all invitations to perform her work.
Iris N. Schwartz is a fiction writer and a poet, celebrating the recent release (July 2006) of "Awakened: Poetry by Madeline Artenberg, Poetry by Iris N Schwartz" from Rogue Scholars Press.
Her short story “Hedonics” is included in the fall 2005 anthology Stirring Up A Storm (Thunder's Mouth Press 2005). Other recent credits: her novella The Fruits of Her Labors is anthologized in That’s Amore! (Magic CarpetBooks 2004), and “The Dairy Kings” is in Hot Women’s Erotica (Avalon 2005). .
She has had poetry anthologized in An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 (Regent Press 2002), and in the UK-based Listening to the Birth of Crystals (Paula Brown Publishing 2003). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in print and on-line publications such as Alimentum, Curare, Ducts, Erbacce, Vernacular, and other reviews with titles much easier to pronounce.
Iris welcomes all invitations to perform her work.
 "Awakened" MADELINE ARTENBERG & IRIS N. SCHWARTZ (Rogue Scholars Press 2006)  Click here to see what SN&R says about this collection... |
OCTOBER READINGS: Thurday October 5,2006, 8PM With CoAuthor Madeline Artenberg The Art House Presents "Awakened" Book Party + Open Reading Hosted by Christine Goodman @ Victory Hall Cultural Center 186 Grand St.(at Marin Blvd.) Jersey City, NJ (6 blocks from PATH Grove St. Station; 1 mile from the Holland Tunnel) $5 admission; refreshments available FREE PARKING Join us the 1st Thursday of every month http://www.arthouseproductions.org |
NYC Sorry Sign Times
I.
I miss the Walk/Don’t Walk
Flashing traffic signs in NYC
Green block-letter
Walk exhorting me
Come on, get going
You don’t have all day
Except I’m born and bred, NYC
Don’t need that message even once.
I miss the solid red Don’t Walk
Daring me with the first flash
Scolding me with the second
Almost shrugging its alphabetical
Self, but finally staring
Me down, showing me
Red like blood I could spill
If I don’t pay mind to
Don’t Walk.
II.
I miss the repetition, the singsong
Groove. Walk/Don’t Walk
Walk/Don’t Walk. What is it now –
White Man Walk? Big Red Hand?
Where is the poetry?
Where is the symmetry?
Where is the simplicity?
Oh, no wordsmithery in that!
Query: When I see White Man Walk
Signaling me, does that mean
I should stay?
Who is the egalitarian
Who is the humanitarian
Who is the contrarian
Anti-English-utilitarian
Modern hieroglyph-loving, scary man
Who came up with that?
III.
Tell me: How do I talk to the Angry Red Hand?
Do I obey Big Red American
Indian Hand telling all us multi-hued
Americans to back off?
Should we back off from wearing
Smiley, dopey-looking, insult-every
Person-native-to-this-land-before
Puritan-hats-and-Abner-Doubleday
Bats-red man-on-the-front-of-
Cleveland baseball caps?
IV.
I miss the Walk/Don’t Walk
Flashing traffic signs of my NYC
Like I miss Herald Square
Swivel-stool-Chock-Full-
Heavenly-cool
Like I miss the raunch, the stale-
Piss stink of pre-Disneyfied 42nd St.
Like I miss the don’t-do-no-favors-just
Order-from-the-Ratner’s-menu he threw
Like I needed the menu
Got the blintzes like my mother
Ate when she worked there
Working early in life quitting school.
V.
Like I miss the NYC I never knew
Ruth Orkin photos, Manhattan white stoops
Weegee hordes on Coney Island, 1952
Like I miss hot and mellow
50 cents chipped heavy cup used to be
Good in any NYC diner
Good in Canarsie kitchen
Good in pasticceria
Not good in God knows
Oversized, over-roasted, overpriced
Overreaching, God-forsaken flimsy
Loco, shut your boca
Grande cup of Starbucks alleged coffee.
Oh, I wish it were possible to miss that
On nearly every NYC street.
VI.
Maybe it shouldn’t matter in NYC that
We no longer have Walk/Don't Walk, that
We now have White Man Walk/Big Red Hand.
Those of us born and bred
Those of us as close as can get to that
We already know when to walk.
We know better than car-driven, pedestrian-
Hidden cities. We choose when
We Walk/Don’t Walk in NYC.
So, powers that be, don’t you Big Red Hand
Me. I don’t White Man Walk that way!
© 2005 Iris N. Schwartz