Concrete Poems
Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
......
The Legend
by Garrett Hongo
In Chicago, it is snowing softly
and a man has just done his wash for the week.
He steps into the twilight of early evening,
carrying a wrinkled shopping bag
full of neatly folded clothes,
and, for a moment, enjoys
the feel of warm laundry and crinkled paper,
flannellike against his gloveless hands.
There's a Rembrandt glow on his face,
a triangle of orange in the hollow of his cheek
......
The Golden Gate Bridge
by Diana KierceOver fifty years ago I was born, They said it could not be, I was only a dream that men adorn, In this free and proud country. Then with sweat on brows, And bearing work so bold, These brave men made me somehow, With gusts of winds so cold. Crackling steel and concrete mix, I grew from beam to brim, Closing up the gap of sea, From San Francisco to Marin. Ships sail in and out of port, Between my rugged shores, Bringing foreign goods of sort, And tourists by the scores. Families come from far-off land, Amazed at what they see, A landmark made by man, A living symbol of reality. With a breathtaking view, Near a steep rocky ridge, White capped waves swirling through, Yes, I am the Golden Gate Bridge.
Continue readingThe Summer I Was Sixteen
by Geraldine Connolly
The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.
Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,
......
My Father's Love Letters
by Yusef Komunyakaa
On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams' 'Polka Dots & Moonbeams'
......
The Ape And God
by Robert William Service
Son put a poser up to me
That made me scratch my head:
"God made the whole wide world," quoth he;
"That's right, my boy," I said.
Said son: "He mad the mountains soar,
And all the plains lie flat;
But Dad, what did he do before
He did all that?
Said I: "Creation was his biz;
......
Australia Today 1916
by Banjo Paterson
They came from the lower levels
Deep down in the Brilliant mine;
From the wastes where the whirlwind revels,
Whirling the leaves of pine.
On the western plains, where the Darling flows,
And the dust storms wheel and shift,
The teamster loosened his yokes and bows,
And turned his team adrift.
On the western stations, far and wide,
......
Once You Told Me
by Judith Ann Kashuba
Once you told me, "Try to create with words
and sounds and hidden feelings."
You guided my hand on a white, spacious,
immaculate paper....and everything changed
into concrete shapes.
You showed me the way to creativity...and then,
you left me alone.
......
Populist Manifesto No. 1
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed-up too long
in your closed worlds.
Come down, come down
from your Russian Hills and Telegraph Hills,
your Beacon Hills and your Chapel Hills,
your Mount Analogues and Montparnasses,
down from your foothills and mountains,
out of your teepees and domes.
......
Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
......
