According to Forbes, New York City is the 4th most miserable city in the nation, after only:
1.  Detroit, Michigan
2.  Stockton, California
3.  Flint, Michigan

 The miserable reasons include the average commute time, housing costs, income tax rates, crime statistics, and weather.  Read the full list of miserable criteria here:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/29/detroit-stockton-flint-biz-cz_kb_0130miserable_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=15000     

 For awhile I’ve been working on a series of poems called “Home,” considering all the different homes I’ve experienced and what that means.  I’ve lived in the 4th most miserable city for 12 years now.  I’ve had many different homes within this home, all rented for too much money (of course!) and some more miserable than others (I heard WAY too much of one roommate over a half-wall divider thing……)   
Some of my NY Home Poems focus on the miserable (that time my door was covered in yellow police caution tape) some on the mundane (dishes dishes! toilet paper…) some on the exalted or curious.  This is obviously an interesting city to call home as a practitioner, with the daily…um…second to second, assaults of craving and aversion.  Its a great place to practice, and a difficult one, too.  For now I will stay in NY.  Because Suburbia, USA still seems more miserable to me.  

williamsburg primal  (home poem #11) 






black inked tattoo
silver club piercing
bone bare beat base
chanted over
with poems –





in some cave art graffitied bar
i step into
heavy boots
step out of
wide open skies
of stars and bugs and night

oh brooklyn

i can hear
the space between my head and those notes
i can hear
the space between your round form and manhattan’s sharp spires
i can hear
my breath roar down berry on the cold.walk.home.
brooklyn-





the kids on the corner
gather sticky as tar
tribal territory marked
south
north-





you wear the map engraved on your leather back
war paint and beads galloping on the L
to some definition of home