valentine

The phantasmagoria ends,

The curtain falls.

The phantasmagoria ends,

The arcades close.

The PHANTASMAGORIA ENDS,

but this isn’t Paris.

It’s not on fire anymore.

I. disclaimer

“THIS IS A [poem] ABOUT NEW YORK.

IT MAY BE BRIEFLY DESCRIBED AS CONCERNING THE VICES AND LURES THAT THE CITY PROFFERED TO THE LOWER CLASSES IN THE [twentieth] CENTURY, AND THE STREETS AND ALLEYS THAT WERE THEIR THEATER.” 

—Lucy Sante, Low Life, Introduction, 1991

*The word poem was substituted for her original word of “book” and the words “twentieth” were substituted for her original word of “nineteenth.”

II. moses.

There are two Moses—

Neither of them reached the promised land.

One was obeying God,

The other was obeying himself.

Were either of them right?

“The legacy of Robert Moses lies within the city’s infrastructure. The way that he moved around the city like pawns in chess allowed for him to treat the city like he was God.”

Every New Yorker is an intellectual,

Whether or not they choose to be.

Something unique about the city,

Allows them to be.

Every New Yorker is a feeler,

Whether or not they want to be—

Not every New Yorker knows who Moses is

Knows who either of them are

But the ones who do are different for it.

Are they better off?

Maybe that’s for you to choose.

That’s not a real quote. Any New Yorker could have said it. 

Any New Yorker could have told you that.

III. absurd

“There’s the idea of the city being absurd,

But I think the city is perfectly rational. 

You’re the absurd one. 

Suburbia being postulated as the alternative to city life—

The perfect alternative—

Is, quite frankly,

A load of—

Anyway, the idea of the city being absurd

Is absurd in and of itself. 

The absurdity of a place is measured by how it conforms to the conventional

And, sure, the city does not conform to the conventional,

But doesn’t it?

What is the conventional?

Is the conventional made to be broken?

What does it mean for a place to be conventional anyway?

Isn’t suburbia a derision from the normal?

If people naturally flock to cities, then placing them in little boxes like the song

Goes against the very nature of humanity, right?

Granted, I’m no philosopher.

Granted, I’m just sitting in a diner. 

Granted, I’m not well educated like you are. 

However, I know my shit.

Anyway, Jacks, that’s why it makes sense that there are hundreds of pieces of rubble falling around us right now. That’s why it makes sense to me that the world is ending, right here and right now.”

IV. Jacks

Jacks was her neighbor. He wanted to grab breakfast with her. Get to know the neighborhood.

He was a college student

At columbianyufordhamanycunyjuiliardtakeyourpick,

And he was new to the city

He was a transplant from a small town

In kansasoklahomaarkansasoklahomaiowaidahotakeyourpick.

He was majoring in medicinefinancebusinesstakeyourpick.

She was amused by him.

V. Delphi

Her parents told her that she had big eyes,

Eyes that looked deep into their souls

And saw the future. 

So they named her after the city where the oracle lives.

A city within a city. 

Harlem Hospital did a good job. 

She was his neighbor, never went to college, orphaned young. 

Held onto her name as she went through the years. 

Worked hard to avoid

A quarter life crisis. 

“Jacks,” she said before things began to fall, “read some Jacobs, I think you’d like her.

She talks about the city. She’s a good inductor into the hard truths of the city and some of the soft truths too. Surprised they don’t make all the transplants read her.”

All Jacks did was nod. He wasn’t that talkative of a kid. 

(and he was the one who asked her to breakfast.)

“One particular passage that really sticks in the back of my mind whenever I think about how much I either can’t afford the city or how I can’t afford to move out is, and I quote because I have fantastic memory,” she flashed a smile at him, “‘We are the lucky possessors of a city order that makes it relatively simple to keep the peace because there are plenty of eyes in the street. But there is nothing simple about that order itself, or the bewildering number of components that go into it.’ It’s a privilege to live here, kid. Don’t fuck it up. For yourself or for the rest of us for that matter.”

All Jacks did was nod. He wasn’t that talkative of a kid.

Delphi felt a shiver run down her spine. 

A small rock hit the window.

“Well, that’s not polite, whoever did that,” she said. She turned to the window. No one was there.

A rock hit the window above the table next to the people in a different booth in the diner.

“Hmm.” she said. 

All Jacks did was nod. He wasn’t that talkative of a kid. 

VI.

And then the ground opened up.

VII.

This was Times Square, not in the diner.

Neither Delphi nor Jacks knew yet.

All they knew about was the pebbles. 

But Delphi had a hint.

She always knew that something like this would happen

In the back of her mind

She didn’t think it would happen while she was so young

But she knew that something would happen. 

She was an oracle, after all.

A real one? Who’s to say.

But she was Delphi, after all.

VIII. monuments hide ghosts

New York Monuments are not destined to last.

the empire state building—

Warhol tried to immortalize it

but the physical building will one day crumble

if the city no longer needs it.

does the city need monuments to survive?

the city has ghosts.

i have ghosts.

BUT THE CITY’S GHOSTS ARE LOUDER.

the city’s ghosts are felt

every day you take the train

every stop you pass

there are ghosts

the city’s ghosts are felt

every day you go to central

or bryant

or morningside

park

who are the city’s ghosts?

the city’s ghosts are rockefeller

and laguardia

and baldwin

and hughes

but the city’s ghosts are also

seneca

Village and

stonewall

Inn and

slavery

And freedom and

the ghosts are also

me

and

you

and

and

IX. collapse

And one of the city’s ghosts cried out,

“As God as my witness, let them all fall!”

And he waited

And waited

And waited. 

And then, just as he commanded,

(like God had commanded “let there be light!”)

Everything he had built

Fell at his command.

Every park

Every bridge

Every playground—

The Southern State Parkway collapsed, too.

The city failed to satiate one of its notorious ghosts

As much as there were many monuments built in his honor. 

The city failed to satiate one of its notorious ghosts

And the city began to fall.

X. The Local and the Transplant

“There are roughly three New Yorks,”

E.B. White said once.

There was the New York for the local, the transplant, and the commuter.

“There are around fifteen different New Yorks,”

Delphi’s father had told her.

There was the New York for the local, the transplant, the commuter, the tourist, the expat, the homeless, the rich, the extraordinary, the boring, the city workers, the street sellers, the prostitutes, the cops, the drug dealers, the drug addicts, and Death.

Death was a New Yorker, too.

Delphi worked for transit, as a tower operator.

She worked in the train towers,

Little booths above the tracks while still being below the surface.

From there, she observed the way of New Yorkers

From the heart of the city.

Their movements,

Their lives,

Their loves,

And, sometimes, their inevitable deaths.

The first time she saw someone die on the tracks,

She couldn’t get the image out of her head.

He was reading a book,

(she later learned it was a ratty copy of

Charlotte’s Web,

also by E.B. White)

And he bent down to tie his shoe

As the train was rumbling into the station.

But he bent too far—

Every time she closed her eyes for the next week,

All she could see was the image of the man

On the small surveillance TV in the tower—

XI. The End of the World

“It’s not the end of the world,” the owner said to a customer sitting at the counter in the diner, “if there are little pebbles falling. It would be the end of the world if one of them broke through my new windows.”

XII. funeral in Harlem

A pastor in Harlem

Was presiding over a funeral,

Delivering the eulogy.

The man was a teacher.

He taught elementary school

For thirty years.

His students had grown up

And their kids had been in his class, too.

He was a good man.

The pastor said so.

“He was a good man.”

“Amen,” the congregation said.

“He was a righteous man.”

“Amen,” the congregation said.

“And he’s looking down at us from heaven.”

“Hallelujah!” the congregation said.

They couldn’t hear the cascading of rubble outside

over the layers of Amens. 

Hallelujah.

XIII.

“My father died before he could see the end of the world,” Delphi said.

Everyone in the diner was now aware that the city was falling apart.

Everyone in the diner was now aware of the rubble falling from the sky.

The rubble coming down from the large and small buildings

And tunnels and bridges

And playgrounds and pools

All around the city.

Did the city not pay correct homage to one of its ghosts?

Did the city not revere it’s most notorious ghost?

Is he its most notorious ghost?

Will he always be the most notorious ghost?

The city has many ghosts

Past and present

And he is only one of them.

XIV. The other ghosts 

The other ghosts followed

In Robert Moses’ footsteps

And called for their monuments to collapse.

The other ghosts called

For their monuments to collapse

And they did.

They all did.

New York was ground zero once more—

This time for the end of the world. 

Y2K can’t get us now. 

It was three days before New Year’s Eve.

2000.

We can’t reach it now.

The rest of the world’s ghosts called out to them,

Taking their lead. 

“Hear us roar,”

The ghosts said,

“Hear us fight. Hear us call.”

The world began to end. 

As always, in true New York fashion,

It all began with New York.

New York was the trendsetter to the very end.

XV. The City’s Infrastructure

“In setting forth different principles, I shall mainly be writing about common, ordinary things: for instance, what kinds of city streets are safe and what kinds are not; why some city parks are marvelous and others are vice traps and death traps; why some slums stay slums and other slums regenerate themselves even against financial and official opposition; what makes downtowns shift their centers; what, if anything, is a city neighborhood, and what jobs, if any, neighborhoods in great cities do.” — Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

XVI. “what kind of city streets are safe”

The annual street fair of Angel St. Parish on 122nd St and Seventh Avenue

Is always a nice time for the kids. 

It always happens in the summer,

And they always try to keep things fun and healthy

While reinforcing that the place they can be safe in

Is always with the Lord. 

To Wilder, the restlessness they felt was never satisfied by Jesus. 

It was satisfied by the world, the world they didn’t know was ending. 

They had always gone to church,

Had always been involved in the church,

But didn’t feel like they connected to the Lord on any particular occasion.

They wanted to feel it,

The “Holy Ghost,”

They wanted to feel righteous 

But they didn’t know how.

They felt like James Baldwin

Except they weren’t prolific.

They were just Wilder,

Whose family didn’t know they changed their name among their friends.

But that feeling was heightened during the summer, when they were sixteen and wide awake

At the street fair.

Right now, they were turning seventeen in four days,

And they were taking a nap

With someone in their bed.

XVII. “what kinds are not”

Luther, the Lutheran pastor in Harlem,

Was sitting in his office, thinking about all he had done.

His wife had left him

Taking with her their two sons

And their cat.

He was about to attend a funeral his fellow pastor was presiding over,

And he had the plan

(the terrible, awful plan)

To take any jewelry off the man in the casket

And pawn it

Because he needed the cash.

Jesus always preached to his disciples that they should be honest

And that they should not be deceitful

Nor should they steal

Or rob

Or hate

Or do anything except follow him and love

And Luther knew this incredibly well.

He was a pastor, after all. 

But his wife had left him

For infidelity

That occurred between himself and the young deaconess

Who had joined the church less than a year ago

His wife moved herself and the children

To her mother’s house

The mother who Luther hated.

Luther didn’t live on a safe street,

Yet the landlord made everyone pay such high prices

Just for them to feel extra unsafe

Because he wasn’t going to fix the broken lock

On their front door.

Anyone could get in.

Anyone could take something from him.

Anyone could take him out.

He entertained the idea daily.

XVIII. “why some city parks are marvelous”

The North Woods of Central Park are lovely.

They feel like real woods.

It’s almost as if nothing bad could happen in them.

XIX. “others are vice traps and death traps”

Except.

1989.

XX.  “why some slums stay slums”

Those who have lived long enough know which neighborhoods were hit hardest by the 1977 blackout. 

The whole city was hit hard—

Looters, lack of power, hot as hell—

But those with the least were hit the most.

3,400 arrested,

But how many more injured?

How many more were stuck in their neighborhoods for much longer than they wanted to because of the blackout?

Or, maybe, how many stayed right where they needed to be?

XXI. “and other slums regenerate themselves even against financial and official opposition”

In an alternate universe where the world doesn’t end, 

Harlem gets better.

Then it gets worse.

Not for the reasons you think.

The people there pulled themselves up by their bootstraps,

Working hard,

Making their neighborhood better.

But the people in control of the city

Saw that and said—

“Prime real estate.”

So maybe it’s good that the end of the world is happening,

Because at least that way, we’ll never have to hear the phrase

“SoHa” again.

XXII. “what makes downtowns shift their centers”

Let us dwell, for a moment,

On the conditions that led the alternate universe

To briefly consider changing the location of South Harlem’s name to

“SoHa.”

It was an attempt at re-branding the neighborhood in a similar way to SoHo,

And it was also an attempt at bringing in who?

Who are we trying to bring in?

More people of a diverse background?

Attempting to bring about another type of renaissance that only comes with diversity of thought?

Or

Are we attempting to bring in

Those who only wish to consume said renaissance,

Not to contribute to it?

Will this make the city

Shift its center to Harlem?

What’s next?

The Bronx?

Staten Island?

XXIII. “what, if anything, is a city neighborhood” 

Jacks’ school was right across the street

From what used to be Seneca Village

Yet he was never taught the history.

In an alternate universe,

In the future there would be land acknowledgements

Of the indigenous people whose lands we now occupy.

But will there be land acknowledgements

For those who have also been displaced by the government

Just like those

In Seneca Village?

XXIV. “and what jobs, if any, neighborhoods in great cities do.”

Delphi worked for transit,

And Jacks worked for his professor.

Luther was a pastor.

Wilder worked in a library, helping out the librarians.

The diner owner owned the diner.

On the days where Delphi didn’t work,

She would sit outside and sell some old books she’d find in the neighborhood.

She would also sell CDs and VHS tapes that she found.

It helped with extra money

That she would use to get gifts for her friends.

She would read those books, too,

It’s how she stumbled upon Jane Jacobs.

She decided to not sell that book. 

She keeps it on her bookshelf

Next to the photobook she has of her parents.

XXV. lost in communication

The rubble falling made everyone stay inside

The ghosts’ insatiable hunger caused everything to crumble faster and faster—

They wanted vindication

For not being appeased.

Those with phones called their loved ones

And those without stayed inside,

Too scared to go to a payphone.

Delphi and Jacks ran to Delphi’s car, shielding themselves from the rubble as they ran.

The diner owner said they were crazy for trying to go out there.

They wanted to get away from the city instead of waiting to die with it.

XXVI. The Oracle and the Flâneur

i wonder if Bill Cunningham

would have found the fashion

of those running from the rubble

stylish, hip, etc.

The Flâneur welcomed the thought that Bill would

While The Oracle focused on starting her car. 

The car was stalling.

“Jacks, I could use a little bit of help here—”

Delphi brought Jacks out of his thoughts.

“Oh sorry,” Jacks said, “I don’t know anything about cars.”

Delphi screamed. 

She wasn’t startled by anything—

It was a scream of resignation.

Some people sighed.

Delphi screamed.

XXVII.

To name The Oracle Pythia would have been too on the nose.

According to The Collector,

“The etymological root of the name ‘Pythia’ also derives from an origin story associated with Delphi. It was said that Apollo slew a resident monster in order to claim the site of Delphi as his own. Afterwards, its body was left ‘to rot’ in the sun. The Greek verb puthein means ‘to rot’. This word is believed to be the root of both the archaic name for Delphi, Pytho, and the Pythia herself.”

I don’t think that Delphi is rotting, do you?

But she was meant to be an oracle,

And she had had dreams about this

For many nights

After she saw the man

Get hit

By that train.

The scream Delphi let out

Was also one of recognition

She knew what would happen next.

She got the car started,

And she booked it to 42nd.

“Buckle up, Jacks,” she said.

XXVIII. Naptime

Wilder woke from their nap,

Feeling around for their phone.

They heard loud noises

Which they thought sounded like rain.

But they also felt rumbling.

They opened the curtains,

Expecting to see torrential downpour,

But their window only revealed

Their city was falling apart.

They nudged the person in their bed

To wake up as well—

They both needed to get out of there

Before the building could collapse.

XXIX. Lutheranism

Luther thought about the amount of cash

He could get from pawning the jewelry

From the dead man’s body.

But he didn’t take into account

The horror on the faces

Of all the funeral goers

When he walked in with a ski mask and a gun

And immediately felt terror

He could go to Hell for this.

And then the floor opened up.

XXX. It begins.

Outside of New York,

News outlets were attempting to cover the hectic nature

That this destruction was bringing.

Inside New York,

There were people running in the streets,

Clutching their loved ones,

Getting crushed by the falling slabs of concrete and metal.

Thus began the apocalypse.

XXXI.

Wilder and their lover scrambled out of bed

And hurried to the basement of their apartment building

Wilder’s parents walked in as soon as they tried to leave the house

And they were yelling

And Wilder yelled back

There is a special connection to the church that you have if you grow up in Harlem in a church. No matter what, there will be a sense of guilt when you do something that goes against what you’re taught there.

But Wilder’s guilt was gone. 

And they pulled their girlfriend with them to the basement of the building,

Where the floor opened up.

XXXII. The Oracle Takes Charge

Delphi’s car reached 50th st.

She wanted to go to the 42nd st. train station

In order to hide from the falling rubble

Like hiding in the eye of the storm.

But the traffic was so backed up,

And there was a hole in the center of the ground,

Right underneath all the screens.

The city was preparing for New Year’s Eve

But all their decorations were being swallowed up

Into a hole of oblivion. 

Tourist after tourist,

New Yorker after New Yorker, 

All going down the hole.

The gravitational pull of the hole

Was like that of a black hole

All the cars

All the people

All the Delphis

And all the Jackses

They were left to rot.

Pythia.

“To rot.”

And then—

XXXIII.

the world ended.

i think i made that clear.

XXXIV.

didn’t you hear?

the world ended!

XXXV.

oh. 

you can’t hear me.

the world stopped.

everyone’s in the hole.

XXXVI.

goddammit, new york,

why did you have to go

and cause the end of the world?

XXXVII.

“In the end, Blanqui views novelty as an attribute of all that is under sentence of damnation. Likewise in Ciel et enfer [Heaven and Hell], a vaudeville piece that slightly predates the book: in this piece the torments of hell figure as the latest novelty of all time, as ‘pains eternal and always new.’ The people of the nineteenth century, whom Blanqui addresses as if they were apparitions, are natives of this region.” — Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project

Are the New Yorkers who were swallowed up by the hole

All fifteen types of New Yorkers,

Are they in Heaven or Hell?

XXXVIII.

Is Delphi in Heaven?

Is Wilder in Hell?

Is Jacks in Heaven?

Is Luther in Hell?

Can we ask them?

Is that possible

Now that the end of the world has come?

XXXIX.

chemo gave my dad long pretty eyelashes

i used to envy them

i didn’t envy how he got them

sometimes i do envy him in death

but not the way he went.

but this isn’t our timeline. 

This is the timeline of the end of the world. 

The timeline without 9/11

Without “SoHa”

Without the Whole Foods on 125th

Without January 6th

Without 2016

Without 2020

Without 2022

Without everything that we know

Did God stop the apocalypse?

Did it get canceled in our universe?

Or is it still happening?

What constitutes a New York apocalypse?

What causes the apocalypse

To only be in New York?

Why can’t it be elsewhere?

Paris had its turn

London had its turn

Other places didn’t get one yet.

Why couldn’t they get one?

New York, my beloved,

Why did you have to go?

New York, my dear,

Why did you have to leave the world

And take everyone with you?

i once contemplated the apocalypse

happening in New York three years ago now

how much has changed?

how much has transformed?

Do we recognize the city now?

do i?

How do we come to terms with the fact that we have changed so much

And the city has changed right along with us?

New York, my beloved,

When did you become a creature we couldn’t handle?

Or are we the creatures you could no longer handle?
New York for the local, the transplant, the commuter, the tourist, the expat, the homeless, the rich, the extraordinary, the boring, the city workers, the street sellers, the prostitutes, the cops, the drug dealers, the drug addicts, and Death,

Death was the final New Yorker.

And he closed the door on the once great city.

The book is closed,

The show is over,

Stand up, 

Applaud,

And leave the theater. 

New York,

Capital of the Twentieth Century,

Where else could the apocalypse happen?

XL.

The phantasmagoria ends,

The curtain falls.

The phantasmagoria ends,

The arcades close.

The PHANTASMAGORIA ENDS,

but this isn’t Paris.

It’s not on fire anymore.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. The Belknap Pr. of Harvard Univ. Pr., 2003. 

Hayward, Laura. “The Pythia of Delphi: Ancient Greek Religion’s Most Powerful Woman.” TheCollector, 7 Oct. 2021, https://www.thecollector.com/pythia-oracle-delphi/. 

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House, 1961. 

Sante, Lucy. Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2003.