Tag: syracuse

• Cancer

  The city breathes deep in its asbestos lungs and sucks me in, and with each breath smoke billows through the air. Arteries pump thousands across highways in their cages of debt, and with each pulse shivers crawl up the cracked smoke stacks lining the heart of it all. This city is a dying animal clawing…

  Nic Jean

  August 28, 2013

  Poetry

  breathing, cancer, city, death, dying, fracking, great lakes, highway, lake, life, New York, poem, poetry, syracuse, upstate, urban

• Resilience

  Rows of trees have grown where I once only saw square houses lined up among dusty roads. The snow doesn’t fall so lightly with the rain scratching the mud and the spring leaves struggling to grow. I’m watching the birds pickup sticks and build new summer homes. Resilient, they build after the harsh winter season,…

  Nic Jean

  July 18, 2013

  Poetry

  birds, distance, homesick, homesickness, longing, nature, poem, poetry, resilience, resilient, seasons, spring, syracuse, weather

• City Burns

  There’s an orange glow of light on the ceiling coming from the lower east side of Syracuse below me.   How fitting. It streaks across my black walls and plaster and pollutes the winter fog outside. How fitting. And as if upon a castle that’s more fit for orange jumpsuits I give this place less…

  Nic Jean

  February 20, 2013

  Poetry

  city, cuse, frustration, homesick, lights, New York, night time, NY, orange, poem, poetry, prison, syracuse

• Thalia and Melpomene

    Dear Professor, They’ve asked me to write and read a poem about a tragedy, and I seek advice. How do I come up with something that won’t make everyone cry? Dear Professor, Scratch that, I changed my mind. How do I write a poem that innocently hides my intention to make them all cry?…

  Nic Jean

  February 9, 2013

  Performance / “Spoken Word”, Poetry

  funny, Le moyne, Martin Luther King, mlk, newtown, nonviolence, poetry, sad, sandy hook, spoken word, syracuse