Oh my God, Chris, I will never forgive you for this. The haiku book arrived today, I started skimming through it without even checking the authors, and exploded with rage and recognition when I came across this one (which will only make sense to a few readers, but they're the ones who count.)
Major Deegan south
to Willis to FDR
we're here with no tolls!
And then I noticed the writer. Yes, it's your poem - and congrats - but it's been
my secret way into New York for sixty years (I did tell Tom Wolfe about it, and he used it as the opening chapter in
Bonfire of the Vanities, but the exact location was masked, because Tom is a gentleman) and now the entire haiku world will know about it.
From 1957 through 1984 (with the exception of four years in various foreign assignments) I lived in Manhattan, worked in Connecticut, and commuted back and forth (against the traffic - empty roads on my side, and massive traffic jams on the other only reinforced my sense of self) five times a week; and five times as week I used the secret shortcut - and toll-avoider - you have now exposed to the world. I was using that maneuver when you were barely alive! It's my last link to being a hot-shot New Yorker. Who gave you the right to use it in a haiku?
(Do you do the entire shtick? Thruway to the Hutch to the Bruckner, to the elevated Bruckner, to the Willis Avenue Bridge cut-off, to the little three block jaunt through the South Bronx and onto the bridge? And - word of advice - instead of the FDR Drive, bear left at the exit, cut over to Lexington, take Lexington to 96th, and then Park the rest of the way downtown.)
Apologies to all who are still with me (both of you, and maybe Chris), but after all those threads
like this one where I had absolutely nothing to add or say, I finally found one which appealed to my particular strength and background.
New York City Haiku
Linear Mode
