real nyc

June 26, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

getting choked up
at rallies where we all chant
“we are New Yorkers”
to signify we won’t be beaten down
or give in
to fascism

literally tearing up
while reading the world’s responses
to our mayoral primary
“that’s my mayor”
in Cleveland
in Virginia
in New Zealand
in Europe

those damn tote bags were right —

don’t you dare call me an american
i’ve never had any
pride in my country

but don’t you dare forget
that i’m a New Yorker
and my chosen city
stands up for all our
beliefs

and when we get together on something
don’t you dare forget
what we can all accomplish
as New Yorkers
together

January 24, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

we are now
well into
the third year
of living in new york city
and though i’m not where i thought i’d be,
the whole world isn’t where it thought it’d be
either.

the pandemic has really taken the onus
off my own head
for what i wanted to accomplish
when i got here,
and redirected my aims
not lower
just sideways-er,
from theatre/circus/maybe film
to voiceover/film/maybe circus
(and a little activism in there
because how could you not be
when looking at
this world)
and theatre…?
who knows what will happen
within this third year
(within these next few months/weeks/days)
but i do know that
governmental policies (or lack thereof) really left the public
out in the cold
at the very beginning
of this whole ordeal
and haven’t been able to rectify
that harm
(nor have i seen much in the way of trying)
and i shouldn’t have expected any better
but man
do i want
to trust
that people
will do the right things,
but power seems to corrupt
even the
best of us…

but
i was talking about
living in new york city
and my life here
(or lack thereof)
and all i have to say is,
though i don’t think i ever really got
the ‘true’
living in nyc experience,
i still suspect
i couldn’t live
anywhere
else.

November 7, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

7pm
every weekday
New Yorkers
cheer
through open windows
banging pots and pans
screaming our thanks
outwards
upwards
towards the front line workers
[trying to] control this pandemic
helping people
keeping folks
alive

[it felt like our only way to actively
give thanks
and feel relatively
in control]

November 7, 2020
11:27am
cheers echo in our neighborhood
as my spouse refreshes their page
“yep, the New York Times just called it”

and here we are again
regaining some control
screaming our relief
through open windows
outwards
upwards
towards whatever higher deities
[or Pennsylvanians]
we believe in
giving thanks for knowing
we should have a leader
who can be held accountable.

[now let’s hold him
accountable.]

October 7, 2020 [part 2]

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i seem to be falling in love with this city
its bright lights of harsh daylight
and soft hues of glaring night

i am still an introvert in the world of countless people
but most of them seem to view ‘people’ the same way i do
so we mutually ignore each other

and yet

if protests and marches and keeping up with the roots of the grass
has taught me anything
it’s that we also have an eye out for each other;
we keep us safe
in these streets, our streets
and my love for this city
never would have reached these levels
had it not been for the community i’ve watched
grow.

October 7, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the moment passed
without much fanfare
of how long we’ve been living in NYC with
[rather than without]
a pandemic at our heels.

i thought it would feel different
but time hasn’t felt ‘natural’
since March.

the days pass in decades
and months are gone by the time you
open your eyes from a
blink.

it would have been
somewhere
around late July
and we’ve known more New York
within COVID
than out

and even if we track
for those weeks we stayed
preparing for the eventual move
and even if we track
for those weeks i visited
before knowing i’d ever
live here

let’s get all those weeks
out of the way
and add a buffer
and still

late September

and i’ve known more about COVID New York
Pandemic New York
Quarantine New York
than pre-any-of-this.

and yet
the whole effect of living in a place
in a quarantine
is that you don’t see the city
so maybe take out the days we were stuck inside?

but that’s more math than i’m willing to do right now
instead i’ll ask
has there really ever been a ‘real’ way
to live in
New York City?

July 7, half-heartedly edited July 21, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

On my rooftop I see:

1. a green tree across the street
2. a match to the folding chair under me
3. a pigeon, hopping on the next roof, its eyes as red as the
4. red brick apartment across the road
5. a treeline, it might be the park?
6. a metal fence, so I don’t fall off
7. this private rooftop terrace, that my privilege helped get me
8. satellite dishes from DirectTV
9. a/c units sticking out of 6th floor windows
10. clouds and a flash of what may be a rainbow
11. my rainbow hair blowing in the polluted wind
12. no sign nor sight of a way to make this poem end
13. sounds of busses, bodega music, wings flapping, construction; scents of the laundromat around the corner,
and wind, so much wind, against my face, feeling a chill on this hot New York afternoon, perhaps//

a loud boom, a bang, was it from the west or the east?
i strain my neck over the gate, and the only answer i see
is the smell of the garbage truck, stopped on my street.

i have so many unfinished poems written
but not the stomach to stomach the rereading.

July 21, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

last night there was a cockroach
poking its feelers out from it’s rooftop hideaway
and at night it caught me by the creeps

but today in the
afternoon brightness
complete with my coffee and sun hat
i’m not quite as creeped

and maybe that’s the lesson for today:
the despair from yesterday
can turn to creativity today
which maybe someday could develop into
flow[tomorrow]

June 24

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i just start getting used to New York
when we end up in Manhattan
and again i don’t understand

so many people
such chaos
such stress

if i had to name it
i think it would be tourists

what are you getting
out of New York City
if you only stay
where there are others like you?

where all your photos are the same
and your experiences shaped by
cookie cutters?

(i could easily ask this of myself
in Machu Picchu
in Qorikancha
safely passing the Andes
by train)

i wouldn’t be so bold as to say
i’ve seen the ‘real New York’

(with such a diverse population
there’s got to be just as many
real New Yorks as there are people)

but i’m sure as hell
going to try to stay far away
from the ‘fake New York’