IRIS N. SCHWARTZ

FEBRUARY 27, 2005:
ORANGE SCHMATTES BLOWING IN THE BREEZE

The two of us arrived at ten at
110th and Central Park West
To view orange—O.K., saffron—
Nylon billowing in the wind
Orange—all right, saffron—vinyl
Tubing and people, so many people
In the park: People chatting, smiling
Friendly. I don’t know: Is this a
Good thing for New Yorkers?
 

I do know that the other day
I received e-mail from a friend
Artistic photos of The Gates
Plus one parting shot: “The Crackers,” little
Neon-orange cheese rectangles
Standing, one after the other. Hmmm: Cheesy
Things foster friendliness, too.
 

At 110th St. we walked past
A growing crowd, just in time
To hear the tour guide say
“This is a pure Christo moment.”
I wondered: Would Bundt pans swaying
In the breeze be a pure Crisco moment?
Crisco makes people friendly too.
 

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad
I went. How could I not go?
I can’t put something down
Before I see it. I try to keep
An open mind, leave
Room for a breeze to blow.
 

Yes, money from The Gates caps
The Gates T-shirts
The Gates calendars
The Gates postcards
Is donated to Nurture New York’s Nature.
Who can improve on the Harlem Meers
Iridescent ducks paddling in water
A bare branch framing Manhattan monoliths
The play of saffron sun against a loved one’s hair?
 

I’m just lukewarm about the orange
Gates; don't think it’s art, though
I agree that it was
An installation. And I viewed
Many, many faces beatific as
If in an institution.
 

When you told your father we were going
To see The Gates, he said,
“You’re going to see those
Schmattes?” Ah, that’s the New York
I love. That’s the New York that puts a
Saffron fabric installation
In its rightful place.
 

Iris N. Schwartz is a fiction writer and poet whose story, “Hedonics,” will be included in the fall 2005 anthology Stirring up A Storm: Tales of the Sensual, the Sexual, and the Erotic. Her novella, The Fruits of Her Labors, is in the anthology That’s Amore! Her erotic fiction has also been anthologized in The Big Book of Hot Women’s Erotica 2004 (just reissued as the Blue Moon paperback, Hot Women’s Erotica), Down and Dirty 2003, and elsewhere. She has had poetry anthologized in An Eye For an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 and in the U.K.-based Listening to the Birth of Crystals. In addition, her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in on-line and print publications such as Ducts Magazine, Erbacce, Ludlow Press, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, Pikeville Review, and Vernacular. Iris has performed her work at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, Bowery Poetry Club, Collective Unconscious, College of Staten Island, Cornelia St. Café, KGB Bar, The Knitting Factory, and elsewhere in NYC and environs, as well as on WBAI, WBAR, and WSTR radio stations, on-line, interactive TV, and cable TV.