City Poems
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
......
Come Up From The Fields, Father
by Walt Whitman
Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother-here's a letter from thy dear
son.
Lo, 'tis autumn;
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the
moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis'd
vines;
......
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 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
......
The Shanty On The Rise
by Henry Lawson
When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West,
On a spur among the mountains stood 'The Bullock-drivers' Rest';
It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside,
But 'twas good enough for bushmen in the careless days that died --
Just a quiet little shanty kept by 'Something-in-Disguise',
As the bushmen called the landlord of the Shanty on the Rise.
City swells who 'do the Royal' would have called the Shanty low,
But 'twas better far and purer than some toney pubs I know;
For the patrons of the Shanty had the principles of men,
......
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.
Sunset Downtown
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
high-rises touch sunset skies
and are bathed in many hues
fast cars bright lights raucous noise
eclectic beauty
frowns and smiles people laughing
on the way to a new day
in the now vivid fashions
sophisticated
......
Chesslike City, Tehran
by Rosa Jamali
Chesslike City, Tehran
A poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian to English by the author
You see the city in my veins fast asleep
Like the obscure web over my brain
As if destroyed the fragments of my memory.
In the morning things were perfect
Just a watchdog which is penetrating incessantly into the eyelids
......
Color Your World
by Sarah A
Walking through the city
Headphones in my ears
The world is colored in music
