A Book Bazaar Poem by Nero CaroZiv

I was in Manhattan in a book bazaar with lots of bargains, none interested me.
I kept my eyes wandering around not really knowing where to look,
At the strolling people or at the static street shelves books
It is just like being in a Zoo
Here too you do not know who
You may meet or see when passing thru
An anchor women from a famous channel
She looked so much prettier down the street
In a stealthy walk trying to hide her notoriety
I could not believe how they can do such a budged make up
In a channel with such fame fashion and prestige
In the screen she looked more like total disaster and fatigue

Through all the colors which the sun bestows
And among every character of form and face,
The Swede, the Russian mixed with Albanian
The Frenchman and the Spaniard from the remote south
The Indian; Moors, Malays and their neighbors
The Tartar and the Chinese, none would miss the event
All humans gathered around the scent
Even the African Ladies in white muslin gown
Followed what the winds carried for miles on

Oh what a blanket of colors what a blank confusion
True epitome of what the mighty city is herself,
To thousands upon thousands of her sons,
Living amid the same perpetual whirl of
Trivial objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences
That have no laws, no meanings, and no conclusion
Tossing and dodging in symbols of eternity,
Of first, and last, of midst,
And the one without end


Like anthill on the plain
Of too busy world before you will flow
Endless stream of human ants and moving things
Your everyday appearance, as it strikes
With wonder heightened, or sublimed by awe
Or vexed by internal gnaw
Strangers of all ages encounter your pace
The quick dance of colors, lights, and forms
The deafening din the broken roar
The comers and the goers; face to face
Face after face; the string of dazzling wares
Shop after shop, with symbols, blazoned names
And all the tradesman’s overhead:
For instance here, fronts of houses, like title-page,
With letters inscribed from top to toe,
Stationed above the door, like guardian saints;
There the instance of allegoric shapes, female and male,
Or physiognomies of real men,
Land warriors, kings, or admiral of the sea,
The attractive head of nowadays current celebrity
Some quack-doctor, famous in his day
The brag lines of a fortune teller
A palm reader or other benefactors of any sort

Enough, the mighty concourse I surveyed
With no other thinking
Just take the right turn into a quiet street

Then the magnificent cathedral in fifth avenue
The images at its lofty wall never lose their magnetic power
Always enthralling the eyes of pedestrian
But on its back stairs among hidden nooks
A homeless find shelter a piece of dry bread with of soup

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