I am in the heart of New York City, midtown Manhattan
fifteen minutes from the arrival of the Metro North.
There are so many accents distracting my thoughts; so many different people
colliding in a collage of stories just beginning to turn
their pages. I am reading them, as they reading me
as just another stranger just an eye glance away from
being known. Tourists stand like soldiers in salute, cameras raised/
ready to fire away flashes of memories
as illustrations of romantic art stare down
upon the main concourse of shadows laced
with glimpses of sunlight. Around me are so many platforms of life
as people travel and admire
this structural attire. Smiles greet me as impatience shoves
me deeper in this crowd of obscurity.

This is where I can just be random – a strange face
forcing a smile just to feel a moment of acceptance,
because for now this is my space – in the middle
of Grand Central Station where fragrances of modern history
are being photographed and I, calm to the city, has
now become found in the travels of anonymity.
© 2011
Tarringo T. Vaughan

have traveled places,

but never a place quite like this.

big lights, big dreams

shoving their way through the crowded

sidewalks where Asian faces greet Irish eyes

and Latino feet walk past African-American

stares.

Painted sidewalks where Italian hands

weave through Arab eyes and where gay expression

catch the attention of straight admirers.  If you can make

if here, you can make it anywhere,

the big apple of freedom beaming down on

Broadway.  But it is reality’s stage where the

real stories are happening.  Shouts and flashing

lights, taking portraits of the moment

while living in the moment.  Young eyes

stare up into the sky where Billboards

overwhelm the aroma of roasted almonds

and the scent of steaming hotdogs.

From a distance the Empire State building

peeks through the night’s fog, and in a distance,

in the middle of the New York Harbor,

the Statue of Liberty is beaming,

inspiring

the true spirit of this big city

where big dreams are colliding inside a diversity of hope.

© 2013

Tarringo T. Vaughan