Second Avenue Samadhi
Standing outside the storefront
of Swamiji's Society
for Krishna Consciousness,
I look up and down
Manhattan's Second Avenue
at derelicts
Puerto Ricans
and
sundry fruitive laborers
and wonder.
Hare Krishna, I think
and look at the
Cosmos Parcels Express Corporation
sign
across the way
like the very
cosmos itself
in its white and green
aggression,
and at the
Gonzalez Funeral Home and
Weitzner Brothers Memorials Corporation's
heavy tombstones
broadcasting death
to all,
and at the
Red Star Bar's
Seagram's 7 sign blinking
red and yellow relief for
exhausted karmis, poor
fruitive laborers.
Hare Krishna, I think,
and walk down the sidewalk
past the revolving
red, white and blue
Mobil Gasoline Sign
buzzing and ringing bells of gas pumps
feeding the dumb, steel chariots
of Detroit.
Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, I think,
wondering what Swamiji
must think
of (God bless) America,
and walk on down
the sidewalk's silent
cigarette butts
that stare up like
little crushed universes
of capitalism.
And think
Hare Krishna
on the corner of Houston Street
and Second Avenue
where I stand a long time
thinking
Hare Krishna,
hands in my pockets and
watching
the dying sunlight fade
over buildings and off
the far silver parapets
of the
Brooklyn Bridge
that reaches over
the river
like an altar
to Krishna.
Hayagriva Das Brahmachary
(Howard Wheeler)