City Poems
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
......
Block
by Hayden Carruth
Right up there this side the Five Chimneys Corners
about a mile south the Oneida line, this goddamn
granddaddy sugar maple block I tell you it's
what you might call a real out-size block a old-time
ball-busting son of a bitch of a block laying by the side
the road where that house with the busted porch is
the worn-out gray asphalt siding? the lawn sale
going April to November? you know where I
mean, this block if it was a redwood you could cut
a hole in it for the tourists to drive through, a good
......
Song Of The Open Road
by Walt Whitman
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth--that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
......
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
......
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 City Is a Garment
by Michael R. Burch
These are poems about city life, poems about modern life and relationships, Also poems about cities like Alexandria, Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Louisville, Memphis, Moscow, Nashville and Salzburg,
The City Is a Garment: Nashville
by Michael R. Burch
A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,—
the city is a garment stretched so thin
her festive colors bleed into the night,
......
O' Toronto
by Lee-Ann Azzopardi
If I die here, let it be known
You were my happy place
Not Disney
As the smell of the sewers
Cascade into my nostrils
I think, one day, I'll grab the literati
Of this city and be praised
O' Toronto let down yr hair
And save me from these small town doldrums
That put a chain around my ankles to
......
Roses in Gold
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Roses in gold sheen
glinting fire at hot June noon
Sun washed garden blooms
Sparkling city paved in gold
in scents of summer so old
And the City Again/І знову місто (Ukr.)
by Halyna Myroslava
і знову місто проникає в тебе нотою мі
фонити без перерви саксофонним гуком вулиць
мі мі мі
місто
вмістилище містики
міст
викладений щільними ярусами
як велетенська надбудова
над стисненою від страху ріллею
......
Terraced Iron Mountain
by Ayatullah Nurjati
My neighborhood is flanked by terraced iron mountains
Dark clouds seemed to surround him
The river water is also murky black
They say they are victims of urbanization
A city that always beats 24 hours a day
Its activities have been bound in a labyrinth
Modernity displays the face of emptiness
I, who live there, find it very, very difficult to meet and chat with honesty
......
