“Winter Break, 1999”
The wonderful Shawna is hosting a dVerse Poets Pub poetics prompt on “1999”. (I have to confess to having spent the whole day writing about 1969, till I realized I’d missed a digit!)
But 1999 had its own ethos, so I slowly, awkwardly, switched gears/years. (1969, in this case, will have to come later.)
Winter Break, 1999
I remember at the Christmas party edge
of Y2K, the DUI guy telling me
how he planned to sneak a new license
once the DMV went down.
And how so many worried that planes
would crash that prices for flights
leaving New York City New Year’s Eve
plummeted, even flights across
the world with free champagne.
What a pain it was back then to
get to Lower Broadway from the
West-–you had to either go through
the Towers or around, and it was
a long long way around–
Taking a break upstate, where the power did go out,
not because of the glitch of far computer, but
wires down nearby, a thick wet snow
webbing all in glassine sparkle–
Going through a long hike too,
the Towers’ lobbies maddeningly
grandiose, soaring glass bordered by the swish
of world flags, red carpet as
thick as a wad of wonga–
With no heat, we laid fires for
the others, finding our own in the
flicker of sculpted muscle against
smooth skin; how mad it felt,
that really and truly caring
what others thought, we
dared try for the real and true–
And yet, how glad–to be
in your close, warm arms
and not on one
of those cheap world flights, not because
I feared the planes would crash–no, that
just wasn’t one of the things I worried about
back then, planes crashing–
(PS – beautiful photo is candlelit snow igloo made by certain family members at the time of a later snow.)
Explore posts in the same categories: poetryTags: "Winter Break, 1999", candlelit snow igloo, manicddaily, poem about 1999 end of year, poem about World Trade Towers pre-9/11
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ManicDDaily 
March 10, 2012 at 8:17 pm
love the initmacy there in the end…bringing it back to really personal…i do wonder what it is you worried about there in that last stanza…i do understand the comfort of being with that one though…smiles.
March 10, 2012 at 8:24 pm
Um, pardon me. But this is awesome! Even your introduction.
These are my favorites:
“Christmas party edge”
“DUI guy”
the “champagne”/”pain” rhyme
“a thick wet snow
webbing all in glassine sparkle”
“thick as a wad of wonga”
“just wasn’t one of the things I worried about”
Excellent work, K!
March 10, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Interesting, I remember we had an electrical disturbance too on December 31, 1999. Loud boom occurred , and I thought to myself this is it… I was so freaked. We were all so freaked, weren’t we, worrying about what would go wrong! But it didn’t happen for a few more years………………..
March 10, 2012 at 8:51 pm
I’m amazed how many people are writing Y2K poems about NYC and the towers. i had seen the towers on Dec 24, 1999 from Jersey City. the night was so clear, I actually saw stars over manhattan. it was such a magical moment, and i didn’t know it would be the last time i’d see the towers.
March 10, 2012 at 8:54 pm
i haven’t had a chance to look at the others, but it kind of makes sense.
K.
March 10, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Wonderful memories of the winter break…the ending lines are warm with a hint of intimacy …no, we didn’t even think of planes crashing then ~
March 10, 2012 at 9:18 pm
I love the intimate feel of this.
March 10, 2012 at 9:32 pm
You definitely bring a New York State of mind, and bring home how that landscape then must seem almost dreamlike from today’s vantage, then you switch,as bri says, to the more personal and intimate, like the lamp that’s glowing in the igloo–I like the last passage best, though it’s all good, all very immediate, yet full of the stirred up past.
March 10, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Your sense of time and place is amazing. The details are so real that I relive them as you draw them from your memory. Great storytelling after so many years. Many many favorite lines. I remember that trip around the bottom of Towers, I used to go thru there to work as well. I haven’t been in the city for emergencies so the part about that doesn’t ring a bell. But I believed the stories I heard about the sense of community that occurred during and after 911. New Yorkers changed, and I felt that again when I got back to NYC in 2008. Great poem.
March 11, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Hi Charles–Thanks for your kinds words though this morning I work up feeling terrible about the poem–all the things I should have put in and took out, etc. etc. You know I had spent the whole day writing about 1969, and will post that poem in the next few days, so I didn’t quite have a handle on this one, and felt kind of awful afterwards when I had really entered that vein but had already put up the poem. Oh well! I spend a lot of time trying to cut and may have cut too much–enough already! New York is certainly a rich subject matter. K.
March 10, 2012 at 11:05 pm
I like the repeated reference to planes crashing. As I looked over events around ’99, I kept thinking about 9/11. Your poem kept that reference point/perspective clearly in front of me.
March 11, 2012 at 3:27 am
first, i love that snow igloo…this is just gorgeous and thoroughly enjoyed your poem karin.. it captures that feeling of thoughtful peace after deciding to stay where you were and then the intimacy in the end.. reads like the warm light of the candle in the igloo..over here we had a big storm with almost 200 people dying just after christmas 1999 and this somehow screamed louder than the Y2K hysterie..
March 11, 2012 at 5:03 am
Interesting, isn’t it, how the major worries change as the decades – sometimes years – come and go. A really compelling read this.
March 11, 2012 at 11:52 am
Oh! Snow and love make your poem gleam; I can’t help but imagine Christmas-like candlelight on snow under these fancy planes flying.
“wires down nearby, a thick wet snow
webbing all in glassine sparkle–”
Champagne? We got some here with your poem!
March 11, 2012 at 2:22 pm
You are really much too kind. K.
March 11, 2012 at 3:02 pm
This poem made me smile, it was like reminiscing over a stack of old photos. The memories just flow into something lovely. Nicely done.