Broadway for one's bidding!

                                                                               Author/Artist: Childe Hassam

Image: Fifth Ave NYC - Nocturne (here)

Music, when soft voices die, 

Vibrates in the memory - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Typical of a small city street

Very unlike those one sees

Old fashioned cobblestones

NYC  is not that sane and quiet

Big Apple is what Times Square is

The sophistication of Broadway

But barely half a block away

The third rate movie theatres

Reeking of weed smokers

And sudden blurting of curses

Interspersed with the F-word

Makes one sick to the bones

The one and only experience

Was just about enough to know

Instead in stark contrast

Just nip over nearby to any of Broadway’s

Overcoats at the cloak-room

Upon arrival and once inside

Not a whisper or a pin drop

Silence observed except

The music and voice from the stage

Music, when soft voices die, 

Vibrates in the memory 

Zorba the Greek

Anthony Quinn himself

playing the lead in person

on stage in 1984

Just as in the film of 1964

but the run was for weeks

on Broadway

At Intermission half-way

For light refreshments

All in all a most satisfying

evening with formal trappings

But informal in all instances

These are the NYC theatres

Broadway for one's bidding!

Note: Revamp of an old poem 

recounting Hank's sojourn at the

Big Apple.

Merril at d'Verse : poetics-august-transitions/