City Poems
The City Planners
by Margaret Atwood
Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
......
Lot's Wife
by Wislawa Szymborska
They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
......
The City In Which I Loved You
by Li-Young Lee
And when, in the city in which I love you,
even my most excellent song goes unanswered,
andI mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search of you...
That I negotiate fog, bituminous
rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin,
or two men jackaling a third in some alley
weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I
......
A Timbered Choir
by Wendell Berry
Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.
I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
......
Sun
by Michael Palmer
Write this. We have burned all their villages
Write this. We have burned all the villages and the people in them
Write this. We have adopted their customs and their manner of dress
Write this. A word may be shaped like a bed, a basket of tears or an X
In the notebook it says, It is the time of mutations, laughter at jokes,
secrets beyond the boundaries of speech
......
empire state
by Sarah A
helicopters circling skyscrapers
like flies orbiting giants
past and future meet
across your concrete streets
can’t love it until you leave it
a fading empire
but forever beacon
began to love you
from a distance
brooklyn after dark
by Sarah A
Trees stand like strangers in the dark
cigarette still smoking smudged on the street
lonely wanderers hunting to make their mark
Brazenly searching for anyone to greet
The Narrow Streets
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
They wend their way through Sunshine City
Cobblestoned, sloped, and Old World pretty;
And lined with colorful, homes in glad unity,
Streets linked heart to heart, in deep affinity.
Up one crooked path, and down to the river,
As rosy birds sing in green trees that quiver;
And soon arises pearl moon, a glowing sliver,
Making the roads to everywhere a bit clearer.
This City
by Arthur Fox
This city is not as it seems
With bright lights it startles
It deceives the hopes of many
This city does not Forgive
It is the struggle of life
Dressed up in all the throes of civilisation
The history weighs heavy in this place
And all that have come before
......
The Slick City Streets
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Recent rain has fallen on the slick city streets,
And redbird has suddenly abandoned the fast life!
Downtown still throbs with the city's heartbeats,
Like vast fields, in the time of red butterflies.
Varicolored and ever-changing, as untamed nature,
In its endless movement, charm, sights and sounds,
As sleek cars whiz past, carrying a hint of danger,
In a merry watery world, which vibrancy surrounds.
