30 Days Hath September 2016 | Day 29 | Night in Coney Island by Amanda Deutch
September 29, 2016
Night in Coney Island
Change, I wanted to say. Turn, I wanted to say. Twist
of fate, I wanted to say. Edge of history, I wanted to say. I said: ‘news.’
I said: ‘flash.’ I said: ‘extra’. . . extra . . . extra . . . extra . . .
Held in a window. Assigned to descend to the street. Take what
you want from here. There are thousands of voices
vouching for revolutions.There are waves
beyond this rhythm. Know this. There are tides
with different times. Slowly the sky unfolds
in ripples canopies waves. Take the sky cold soda &
water for a dollar one dollar one dollar water a chorus. You
as compared with the week before looking for
yourself through old streets—
A woman on the boardwalk glides by
with two roosters—one tucked under each arm—
dances to the rhythms of the Coney Island night sky and
first city stars: Polaris, Cassiopeia. This New York City vertebrae.
Memory. Nebulous Insomnia. Guy clicking gum chewing gum
boys drinking a bottle of screw top red from a plastic bag.
Night begins. A man with a t-shirt
that reads: Please Baby Please
Please Baby Please Please Please
Note: Epigraph from Vito Acconci’s The Red Tapes (1977)
Amanda Deutch’s poems have been published widely in journals online and in print. Recent publications include: The Rumpus, 92Y Words We Live In, Revolver, Denver Quarterly, Manhattanville Review, and Barrow Street. Deutch is the author of six chapbooks, including Pull Yourself Together (dancing girl press, 2016) and Fit to Print (Harsimus Press, 2015) a chapbook anthology of 3 artists (Barbara Henry, Rosaire Appel, Amanda Deutch) who use The New York Times as inspiration. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she has been awarded grants, fellowships and residencies from Footpaths to Creativity (Flores, Azores), Then Betsy Writer’s Room (Miami, Florida), Poets & Writers and NYFA. Deutch lives in Brooklyn, where she curates Parachute Literary Arts site-specific events and libraries. For more information about her curatorial & community arts work, check out www.ParachuteArts.org.