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'
......
Ballplayer
by Evie Shockley
i cop a squat on a squared-off log,
to watch you ball on the community center court.
butt numb, i shift my weight
and shake mosquitos from my ankles,
but never take my eyes off the game.
yours follow the orange orb, your pupils
twin, brown moons reflecting its light.
your play is wild efficiency,
......
When I Grow Up
by Lochard Noel
I'd like to go somewhere
To spread health
Or a great brick layer
To separate concrete and bricks
I'd like to be a teacher
To shape beautiful minds
I'd like to be a farmer
To plant rice, corn and beans
......
Autobiography
by Nâzım Hikmet
I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart
......
Summer
by Elizabeth Swados
Tsss
Summer sounds,
Tsss
Concrete and heat,
Sneakered feet on tar,
Stepping on a melted candy bar,
Squish
Crunch, crunch
Gravel on the street,
Woosh
......
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'
......
