Joe Bisicchia

Holding Hands on the El

We run with the elevated. Feel the leather of forever, yet slippery as if we dream in quick disarray of rain, afraid to awaken again, our poems too soon melted and forgotten. But there is symmetry to life’s rapid transit. Like a feather, so much drifts away, yet still sticks to the wet glimmering rail.

We do our best to hold on.




I Am the City

And my arteries run;
they race with the streets,
my depth chasing the lines underneath,
my arms chasing my dreams.

I lift each line,
the horizon
my jump rope,
another, another, another.

I am the city
and all the hearts are as one,
all the sin, all the love,
alone, all shared never alone.

I am the city
and my abilities stretch to the sun,
while in this Garden State
regrets line in streaks, rubbish forlorn.

In a dream Walt saw a city invincible
and now this Whitman here does rest,
as I do too, to be built upon,
to see over the horizon

while another, another, another
and another lily is born.
Each me, you turn into yourself, us,
            the city.


for poet Nick Virgilio (1928-1989)
of Camden, New Jersey



Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, his works have appeared in numerous publications. His website is www.widewide.world.