World Trade Center

From the Poetry Window at East Village Books (99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue) ... featuring this work by Donald Davis... 

World Trade Center 

You so want to tug on her pleated sleeve 

Tell the tour guide how you have been here 

Once a long time ago when you were learning
The real ABC's of an unmindful people 

You want to tell her how plants have feelings 

That spiders will attach to your thumb 

Slide down a string on way to a thing 

On their own crows will belch a single verb 

Then fly off kind of like the night crawlers 

Move away from your light the way 

Coils of DNA recoil from a determined future

Fourth of July

Photo by Kelley Davis 

From the Poetry Window at East Village Books (99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue) ... featuring this work by Donald Davis...

Fourth of July 

We are a united people

Confident that every shadow

Will pass over our drinking water

Move on without immolation

Of our beautiful women

Because ours is sacred

The distillation of many songs of

The unquestionable legends 

Of our shipwrecked ancestors 

The same shadows hid

Behind blessed sea walls

Which they had built so that

Conversations could be had

Away from the occultations

Of the various birds lined up

Well into the night waiting

To carry out innate missions.

For us it is just and proper

For the wars to end

Time and again

New ideologies to begin

'Casino Rat'

As National Poetry Month concludes ...from the Poetry Window at East Village Books (99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue) ... featuring the work of Johnny H., an East Village poet...

"Casino Rat"

If I could use my comb

On your blood-matted hair I would

If I had been there to say the Words

Before you managed to limbo

Into the non-humane trap

Being defenseless and without sin

Why, I would have done everything

Even opened my jar of luck

And rubbed some on you

However

I have already spent my excess capital

Playing blackjack through the night

Running probabilities to the very end

Have thus concluded that all of us

Are either coming or going

Yet

Despite such knowledge of the flesh

I still bet even money on your dreams

Of slithering out from under your stars

Finding way home to your children

Regenerative agriculture in the East Village

Photos and text by Donald Davis 

Earth-friendly growing techniques can be applied to any size land plot. 

At Asher Levy School on First Avenue (between 11th and 12th), the DOE gardeners have left the remnants of the 2024 garden to cover the soil for the winter. The ground will be planted in the spring but not tilled (the soil will not be turned over). This allows the below-ground ecosystem, including the mycorrhizal fungi around the plant roots, to continue functioning. 

As with organic farming techniques, commercial fertilizers are not used. Pictured just inside the fence are the stems of the two sunflowers that bloomed in 2024. The famous sparrow community tree is directly behind.

 
The tree plot in front of 97 St. Mark's Place is an even smaller example of regenerative agriculture. It shows the winter rye planted in late October to cover the soil. The growth of this food grass will stop for the winter and resume in the spring. 

With regenerative acreage in farm country, the farmers often allow cattle to graze the cover crop during the winter. The land is then replanted for the spring, usually with a different cereal or other commodity crop. 97 St. Mark's will be planted with sunflowers, lettuce, bulbs, and perhaps a warm-season grass of sorts.

The asterisk here is that the street was torn up in 2024 for gas line replacement. The rats burrowed among the tree plots and destroyed the surrounding seedlings. 

As a preventative measure, this plot was covered with chicken wire, and winter rye was planted in the hexagonal lattice holes of the mesh. 

The tree sign is a poem, "Ode To the Winter Grass," by Johnny H., the East Village Books poetry window poet. The poem is dedicated to Gabe Brown, a North Dakota farmer who has toured the country over the last decade and a half, speaking to large groups about regenerative agriculture, which makes the world a better place. 

Emigration

From the Poetry Window at East Village Books... featuring the work of Johnny H., an East Village poet...

The water runs off the Lower East Side 

Changing color over the age 

The elm gave up contributing 

How many years has that been 

How many years ago 

Was the blood of my birth 

The wrens when did they fly away 

At the price of a song

The city breathes dispensation 

Into the fruit of the land 

Have you flown there yet 

Did your wanting change 

Did you see the subway train 

From a seat in the tree 

You may not know 

You will not be ready for it 

A most inappropriate time 

You will alter 

The tint of the sea

'In the Scheme of Things'

In honor of both National Poetry Month and Independent Bookstore Day...from the Poetry Window at East Village Books... featuring the work of Johnny H., an East Village poet...

"In the Scheme of Things"

What is a cocklebur waiting

For a bear that never comes

What does it do the day

But wave in the wind

At the end of a stem

What nature is this

To have gifted a purpose

Crafted a means

Assigned proper tasks

To chloroplasts and sun

Was it better that one day I,

Yes a mammal with no hair

To speak of

But new jeans and argyle

On a clumsy path

Through loblolly pines

Become a raison d’etre

East Village Books,  99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue

Saturday hours: 1 p.m. until late

An appreciation: East Village Books

New York City entered Phase 1 of the four-part reopening plan yesterday. In this initial phase, curbside and in-store pickup are now available for certain retail outlets, including clothing stores, florists and bookstores.

This does not pertain to East Village Books. The used-book mainstay at 99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue has been open throughout the COVID-19 PAUSE. Gov. Cuomo stated in March that "any business that only has a single occupant/employee has been deemed exempt."

And we've heard from several residents who have been grateful that East Village Books remained open — albeit with instituted time and occupancy limits while following CDC guidelines. Having the opportunity to be inside a store and find some pandemic reading has been therapeutic.

With the proprietor's blessing, EVG contributor Stacie Joy recently wandered the stacks and shared these photos from her visit...





















East Village Books is also continuing to buy used books. Per their website: "On the store-open days, should you wish to sell books without entering you would phone from out front and use the designated bins. You would be paid by envelope and offered an alcohol wipe."

A real, live page-turner at East Village books

So the Post has a piece (an exclusive! FRONT-PAGE story) about this guy, described as a "serial thief who reportedly stole books from the New York Public Library." So the guy would rip out the official-looking library pages and sell the books around town.

Donald Davis, owner of East Village Books on St. Mark's Place, had been fooled by the guy before. So they set a trap for him the next time he walked in.

Anyway, long story, the guy returns... and, after a confrontation, a tussle ensues, the Post reports. But! Davis was a wrestler in high school. He pinned him until the cops arrived.

“There’s no other situation where I would do this. I was so angry that he was stealing from the library,” Davis said. “The library is just a very important piece of our community.”