Best Smoggy Poems
If you wait until the sun goes down,
a thousand suns will rise.
Artificial, bright, igniting
tangled clouds in smoggy skies,
and flooding dingy streets
with fluorescent streams of light
that carry waves of people,
cresting, crashing, clashing
across mismatched sidewalks.
They speak in foreign tongues
that lick like wild flames
and burn with glowing strangeness
as cockroaches skulk and scurry
beneath makeshift stands
where pairs of busy hands
prepare the strangest foods,
from skewered squid and snakes
to crepes and pineapple cakes,
cubes of deep-fried tofu
and the freshest dragon fruit.
Watch them badger, hear them barter
over onyx rings and jade bangles
beside rose quartz beads that dangle
from scratched display cases.
The market throbs with energy,
a living entity that swallows me.
And when I think I've lost myself,
I focus on that giddy sound,
the universal language
that transcends all others.
They laugh, and I smile.
*Based on a night market I visited in Taiwan last year
I turned around
in the rain
misty haloed street lamps
shadowed you
drizzled
I turned around
in my sadness
to see moments of we
fog smoggy
not in truth I don’t think
I turned around
in your leaving
clarity spilling from eyelashes
wondering
if you were simply a
state of mind
Congealed upon the banks of this
tamed dragon sprawl stacks of crude buildings.
Concrete covers all but two glassy kings,
thick smoggy gusts give them a grimy kiss.
Insipid pillars choke sunlight, endless
roads incise the very earth, wings
of apartments cram into ev’rything,
ev’rywhere stacks upon stacks of units.
Herein lies the future, our dystopia
has arrived through the hazy looking glass.
Perhaps a reminder, utopia
is not coming, or maybe the hourglass
has but some time left. Then the route is clear.
We must turn everything around. And fast.
Smoggy, foggy, damp and cloggy,
cloyingly moist, feeling soggy,
lost in a shroud of stratus cloud
muffling the voices of the crowd.
Whirling, swirling, wraith-like curling,
absorbing the light, as dark unfurling
it reflects the moak, thick as smoke
all life hidden in its nebulous cloak.
When the darkness dies
with every morning sunrise
always the truth remains
When the murky skies
of deception and lies
are made clear by winds of levity
Then all the smoggy hate dissipates,
and every foul injustice abates,
but the truth will still remain
O marvelous light
O wondrous wind,
cleanse the earth with truth
as always, as often
When the rain begins
to wash away the mire of sin,
only the truth shall remain
When the fire mountain awakes
to burn away all hardened hearts,
the igneous Rock of truth remains
O glorious rain
O purifying fire,
cleanse the earth with truth
as often as you desire
Let the tree of Zion take root,
and let her branches spread wide,
everywhere on the face of the earth
Let the sweet truth in her fruit,
and the medicinal truth in her leaves,
be tasted freely by all at the sacred rebirth
Scents of burnt embers flowing over my windowsills
Charred are the palm tree fronds that
once fanned the breeze
Seized are the pods, timbers
Torches sparking shrills
Behold the ashes drifting
as they fall from my smoke-sooted skies
O but in b 'tween choking and tearing eyes
Bright orange-colored clouds shade
So fiercely they invade
If you look West…
The 'golden glow’ shall arrive
He who heeds the warning
and flits, may survive
A brush fire has lit the landscape
furiously waves its crimson cape
Tangerine smoke suspended in time
surrounds the hills all around me
congesting the natural scenery
Arousing anxiety, anticipating
the scale of the expansion its spreading
Swirling fire, twirling tornadoes
ravishing existence in its pathway
Flames so blinding that align the sunset
In my field of vision – I’ll never forget
Frightful yet surreal,
I hear myself whisper it’s not real
Nonchalantly, Winds sweep in firestorms
Notorious for its name the ‘Santa Anas’
Lingering, its breath; smoggy haze swarms
The brave battle the blaze, corral the flame
As the hills die, an obstinate inferno resurges
"To extinguish life" its aim
Like the Phoenix rising again and again,
but this isn't the Phoenix
it is something sinister
Guide us along the road to a safe place
Away from the drought,
O home, there is not a trace
Chaos turns on every cornerstone
I’m back where I started, I atone
Circling all areas, as others do —I do
With nowhere to flee vs warnings to eschew
Perhaps I’ll make it to the highway
with westbound caravans I’ll stay
There I’ll keep alive
If you just look to the West…
The ‘Orange glow’ (fire) has arrived!
BLUE EYES AND BLACK FLESH MESH TO COP DOPE
The smoggy air was thick atop a Harlem high rise
The only thing out of place was a boy with blue eyes
He was a youth in search of peace not found at home
And so the boy with blue eyes was begotten to roam
He ventured forth into a world of darkness to search
Having long ago been abandoned by school and his church
Neither religion nor education could comfort him so he took to the road
Headed afar from the comfort of his family’s hearth and abode
So there stared blazing blue eyes on a rooftop’s domain
As he talked to a man with a way to ease his pain
Thirty dollars and a smile would send him on his way
And so he returned to Harlem day after damnable day
Long Island had raised him but that island wasn’t long enough
And middle class madness left him with sadness to rebuff
Day after day he’d climb the stairs to where they would meet
A tall black man and a boy with blue eyes trying to be discreet
The black man sold his wares by dollars and a bag
The boy with blue eyes fearing his toes with a tag
Because in Harlem death was an indeterminate threat
And a boy with blue eyes had better pay every debt
Sometimes the air was thinner during winter’s cold weather
Yet and still the two faced fear while huddling close together
Harlem was his teacher and a rooftop was this junkie’s incubator
And writing this poem is blue eyes still with a habit forty-three years later
© 2012….copyright PHREEPOETREE.....~free cee!~
( vision in a dream )
Always moaning,
In the last gasp! the vision.
Moaning, so! I decamp;
lonely,far and away
Amid - smoggy haze.
Sharpen a pulse
by sorrow.
Moaning, then weakly!
In the midst of
the adjacent tide of certainty,
I taste the bitterness of grief.
Ah _ O uncertainty _
If you only protecting me
from doubting insanity,
of my dream !
Many plants are down in number
Creatures too are being slain
Some for sport, others in vain;
There’s destruction of the ozone
And the threat of acid rain.
The great forests are receding
And who’ll ever bring them back?
Man’s gone off the beaten track
At the risk of costly chances,
This mad rush he has to check.
Give life a chance … we have to act at once.
Can’t sit and wait until it is too late.
Give life a chance … we have to act at once.
Hard we must strive to keep this world alive.
Wastes have seeped into the rivers
And been dumped into the sea,
No one seems to heed the plea;
Self-made noose is getting tighter,
To fight back we must agree.
Lucid water lost its sparkle,
Shades of green have changed to grey,
Smoggy air has come to stay
Whilst that beam of healthy sunshine
Has become a deadly ray.
Give life a chance … we have to act at once.
Can’t sit and wait until it is too late.
Give life a chance … we have to act at once.
Hard we must strive to keep this world alive.
----------------------------------------------------
High summer. We sat poolside at your old friend’s
multi-million dollar house overlooking a smoggy city.
Inside his AC-chilly walls, I searched for words
to praise the decor, couches so plump
with designer pillows, I couldn’t sit down; exotic rugs
I was afraid to walk on. Mi casa es su casa,
your friend declared, but it wasn’t true.
Now we’ve come back home. Heaven
is the comfortable squalor of this bungalow
under cottonwoods shedding brittle leaves; heaps
of unfiled poems, our own breath
filling our own space.
Oh second hand counting time
upon the liver building gothic clock
Waving goodwill to her dearly departed 3 sister's
Starring gainly upon lady mersey set a blitz
Climbing up her red bricks
Of the old abandoned mill's
And lighting up her failing dock yards
My mother loved you
My father hated growing up in you
And wanted away so much
He joined the royal navy
Dreaming of anywhere but here
As the matriach of fallen ladies
Scruffy Nelley
Treads the cobbles back and forth
From lime street to scotland road
Oh ferry cross the mersey
Oh cruise liner
Oh hms naval ship
Oh scouse dark sense of humour
Oh woolyback
Oh Catholics
Oh yee of Irish decent
Oh tenement
Oh working class
Oh heritage
Oh Great Ormond street market
Oh liver bird's
Under whom we live and dwell
In smoggy shadows
Oh glory
Oh shallow past
Lennons eye's must be burning
6 feet under mining jam butties
in Sir Ken of Dodds Knotty Ash
Oh 2 Cathedral of opposing faith
either side of hope street
Oh St George Hall
Oh Philharmonic
Oh Alan Ginsberg
Centre of the philosophical universe
We only choose to leave
Because we know
We will be welcomed back
With open arm's
For Liverpool is nothing more
Than a place for lost sailors
Set aboard the Titanics final journey
Following the whitest star in the line sky
Searching for a home to return to
I can see the sky exploding, falling overhead
Filling us with horror and dread
Killing innocent people in the name of religion, race and creed
Or a political agenda for the benefit of a few in the ruling regime
They speak out loudly on TV and in crowds on the street
Advocating free will genocide and won’t accept defeat
The government assumed the role of the villain
Not just murdering soldiers and innocent men but even children
A chosen batch of criminals in public office
We let them go on making war and making money off us
To support their blood-thirstiness we gave up on our cause
Maybe all our protesting was in total vain
Maybe all along we were just a bunch of wimps.
I can see the dead, I can feel the people’s fear
The endless sorrow and their tears.
The destruction of mankind
Property and nature as a whole
That has got the world reeling in its loss
I can feel the people’s righteous anger held at a great cost
Smoggy clouds of smoke and dust where it used to be blue.
Now, how much is a soldier’s tears worth
Ten yards for a dead heart
A thousand dollars payday for a lost leg
While the movies make it seem noble
Keeping the gut, gore and horrors down to the minimum
But for the men and women, we lose over and over again
Till the horrors without, shade the horrors within
And for those who come back, never come back again the same
How much do you think it’s worth?
When will we realise the damage it causes?
When will we obliterate hate, strife and discord?
When will we live in harmony and peace in this world?
In the name of the brotherhood of mankind as one.
She swirled her gases in the prettiest way
Appearing smoky and smoggy, like a ball of ice
The sky lit up at as it watched her go,
Vibrant robe trailing in a flourish of stars
No one made an exit like Luna,
I taught her that whispered an entity unseen
I scoffed at Zeus’s audacity
It's a thin line travelled on a daring dustbin lid that caresses time. Dutiful are the Daisuke Daoism of daisies whose appearance is quite superb and unsupervised in a midday storm swish. Putting platters place puddings pronouncing presidency power. And the multicolumns of multipurpose spray aniseed on a giant curve of sky ball. Dumbing deeming drifts. And an eighty watt light bulb with no light. Moving music makes mint magnetic magazines. And the oblivious liquid drop of obligation is an oath served and taken in a translucent soup bowl. Radiate not a heat from a het of hexagon headed horror. And give no television children's character a power plinth. Unaided stick walking to the shop to buy ships, mushy cheese, and a little walnut. To place in a large pie. Oh, steel frames lurking in a smoggy cafe drinking acrid coffee then cantering in dreamland ensues. Wish for no waiting floors to rise up. For upstairs is underground and underground is a huge epitomized cannabinoid whose antics with a whisk make great headlines in a mosque or in a church or in a synagogue. Dive then to the depths of mist and return with the golden swords. Great. Fantastic news for the sea serpents running in a global race against the tides. Hahaha hold a toothpick to the sun. Hahaha spinning statutory static void. Hayashi circuit breakers hahaha towel. Xxxxx circumstantially z and that was the p y q reporting from 89.0 on a ridge of ice on a three foot cake in landscape 76.89~
Plague of lies,
froggy croaks untrue
Swarm of flies
surround Capitol dungHills
Infectious hope buzz kill:
Leftover piles of shill legislative bills
that don’t do do right
There should be no nose mystery,
stink of deceit fills the land
Brown lip locust wings
avarice ride
on a grifter breeze
Devouring all of the green
Dissimulation policies of greed
be blowing
turd raspberries
in the wind
This puff pestilence is putrid exhalation X brand
There should be no Pinocchio mystery,
rotten Would of falsehood
burns lung pollute-y
Foul breath forestry smokescreen fills the land
Cursed sour ground sound
is coming in waves
Flood of maggot noise abound
Blanket of little white **** snow job
is toilet tissue swirling around
Coming down royal flush
depressingly hard
Pain threshold too low to withstand
There should nascent be ... nay, no nasal mystery —
Veracity murrain miry
is the excrement sand which fills the land
Hazardous Waste tax material
has been poll sewage,
cesspool sinking below
the average Joe Citizen cranial
Yes Land filled with lies,
do do have a most wretched smell
But[t] toadies ain’t pocket sorry enough
about how honesty died
Croc ballot tears, every four years, don’t vote eulogize
Yes minions
got such lice, dysentery lips
Their squirmy truth
is always diarrhea leaping DeLorean
Back to the feces Future
To a broken promise Land filled
with dumpster dregs
of nothing
but[t] frog skeletons
Amphibian vow voices croaking
those empty chest organs
Howl flickering full be their guts rotting!
Lying shamelessly on hallow divided ground,
naked telly truth
went into tooth decay hiding
Bellyaching dirt went spit turd belly up
As dem/‘publican Kermits would
Jiminy cricket say: “Dey(light) don’t need no
dark stinking proof”
Those midnight jumpers
love spit mooning tongue sticky shade
un’er a halitosis roof
In a land filled with rank vapors insincere,
ain’t no pig manure methane doubt,
you’ll be pathologically told:
Smoggy talk got put on hold,
while the contagious shouts thin out ...
Rows of zeroes didn’t magically disappear