As you well know, I am away from New York right now, the fact that gives me a very different perspective. The spring term was tough: busy with too many responsibilities, so rushed that it all became disorienting. New York seemed suddenly strangely hostile, City College too demanding, my personal projects just postponed and postponed again…

It’s good to have a chance to step back and regain a more balanced sense of time and place. It came as a nice surprise that I began actually thinking with pleasure about my return to the city in July. So when I thought about the “sign-off” for our work together, the beautifully colorful and enigmatic work by the painter-poet Stan Rice begged to be posted on our New York web-site.

With my best wishes to you all,

Grażyna Drabik

***

Stan Rice

LOOKING FOR AN APARTMENT IN NEW YORK

 

Who is the Korean grocer,

by what light does he sleep, who are

the doves who serve coffee with Arabic accents,

moving among each other and the steel stools

like kleenex in airwells, who

is the condo saleslady in the stiletto heels

when she is not composed,

who is the wealthy woman on 5th Ave

with the ability to speak of the weather

as though it were holy and the days were numbered,

who are these people,

and how long will it take me

to sing songs with them in them?