This Saturday, June 5, 2010, will be “Jack Foley Day” in Berkeley, California. On this day Jack Foley will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Berkeley Poetry Festival .

Congratulations, Jack Foley.

Walking Across Brooklyn Bridge

by Jack Foley

As we walked across the Bridge,
  I thought of Hart Crane
    (poor suicidal poet)
      & of Joseph Stella
whose paintings are like chords struck
  on the harp strings
    of this amazing edifice
Crane saw The Waste Land
  as a condemnation
    of modern industrial society
      (“so negative”)
    His answer was
      this marvel
    of spidery, delicate cables
      which swoop us into skies
of unspeakable beauty
“sleepless as the river under thee”
(Eliot: “Fear death by water”)
  Our guide, Gregory,
quietly told us stories,
      raged against the sometimes reckless bikers,
        & watched our wonder
            as we walked
        across this passageway
        from busy life to busy life—
            this “between”
          suspended over water—
            that took us
            into the sky
          & home to Brooklyn

With Jack Foley in NYC, 2005.