This might have been an astounding scene, once.
Though, cracks and crevices, these days, it confronts
The hedge plants, like uncut hairs, have grown wild.
Waste-hills are higgledy-piggledy piled.
Manholes and potholes are littered around.
One who falls in could easily get drowned.
Flags, once painted on the walls, look faded.
With red-spit splashes, dustbins are shaded.
Here's one; there's one; you'd find in each corner
An artist exhibiting his honor
Are these singers part of an orchestra?
Is earning fast pennies their formula?
Hungry beggars terrorize one and all.
Scaring cat-dog-fowl-swine-cattle groups brawl
Beggars share their alms-bread-chunks with stray dogs.
Everyone sleeps together like dried logs.
Amidst sellers' and buyers' hard bargain
One could hear sounds of much party jargon.
Cutting across them rush the pickpockets.
Thieves hide behind municipal crochets.
Floods of populace flow gushing wildly.
Though vexed within, they seem to smile mildly.
Each one rushes as though under a curse
Indian pavement is a universe.
Fry eggs and grok
Shell shock food
Rush toilets and dustbins
Only douchebags
Some say poetry is a dying art
Headed toward the dustbins of the latter,
Whereas I see it as an arrow flying
Towards ideas and thoughts that matter.
As photographs and videos
At the speed of light these days
Have become our culture’s medium
In how we think and what we say.
Our attention spans have disappeared
With our faces in our phones
Connecting us with the world at large
While leaving us more alone.
Except for we who love poetry:
Making sense of who we are.
For poetry gives symmetry
And points us to the stars.
Internally and externally
Both spiritually and above,
For reading and writing poetry
Is a gift of life and love.
The days fly by
one and the same
too busy to pause
to earn their own name
Unearthly winds
sweep moments away
into dustbins of perdition
painted colorless gray
Neon fingers
banish the remnants of the day
Dustbins loiter ominously
blurry eyed
The Night people slide in between
Sailor doom bewitched by sorceresses
as heckled men face electric spears
Stet the occasion
A drawbridge opens
staining the gangster day
Outstretched palms
preclude the day
Jewelled ghost trains
ordinately take you
further away
Velvet dolls with a brainy side
watch stale commissioners slide
Star clad ingénues infuriated evermore
The city, part awake, part asleep,
part dark, part lit,
strangers all around, repulse me.
I trudge tormented,
hungry and forlorn,
down an unlit cul-de-sac.
Black cats mew,
Unseen dogs bark,
my stomach growls.
Empty dustbins abound,
No smells of food.
Is that a gargoyle in flight?
I duck in fright?
I curse as a piece of paper
flutters to the ground.
The sky too dark,
the angry wind howls,
my soul in agony,
my body weak,
from lack of sustenance.
I lurch into an old abandoned house,
climb up rickety stairs,
hope all would fall upon me,
end my earthly stay.
I see her in a corner
huddled up.
I sit near her,
foul smells mingling.
She stirs,
hands me a piece of stale bread.
Thank God for little things.
I oft wonder how this happens,
Flowers whilst sink stones swim at once.
The poor beg for a piece of loaf,
Piles reach dustbins, breads along buns.
Cows starve for a mere blade of grass,
Big bulls whilst clean up crops in tonnes.
Poor die parched, not a drop of oil,
On dead, many a ghee lamp burns.
Poor toil, life getting harsh on earth,
Rich pay dear to reach for heavens.
___________________________________
Ghazal |14.11.2021| world
Poet’s note: Weird are the ways of this world.
Street Battles
by Bob Moore © 2019
I remember when I was a kid
dustbins were tin, and they had a tin lid
it made a great shield, when we went off to war
to fight the gangs, in the suburbs next door
We had wooden sticks, and we called them a sword
we threw rocks and stones, and our battle cry roared
but hardly a bone, ever got broke
and at the end of the day, it was all a big joke
We’ll be back tommora’ we’d yell as we went
they yelled, “we’ll be waiting”, and a rock our way sent
Nobody won our battles and fights
But we had to get home, ‘fore they turned on the lights.
Now, listen, 2020, you're looking rather tired,
you seem well past your sell-by date,so
sorry, mate- you're fired.
It seems nobody's liked you
since January first,
you gave them all a headache then,
and frankly, you've got worse.
You've not delivered happiness,
no, nowhere near enough,
your driving skills have lapsed a lot,
our journey's been quite rough.
I'll give you two month's notice,
then after that, you're gone,
we've lined up a new replacement,
he's called twenty twenty-one.
He's promised us some vaccines,
and holidays galore,
and dustbins full of PPE,
not littering the floor.
I'm sorry that I've bought you in
to give your wrists a slap,
you've had all year to get things right
but, really-
you've been crap.
BACKSTREETS
In the back streets of my mind,
I play again the games of my childhood.
Vehicles few and far between, to interrupt our play;
Our soccer ball, leather scuffed by tarmac,
Thuds against the goal, chalked on the wall
Of Mr. Thompson’s house.
Until, his patience at an end,
He comes out, roaring, red-faced,
To chase us away, fist shaking.
“I know who you are, I’ll tell your parents”.
Further down the street, we start again;
Our goal two dustbins in the middle of the road,
Moved only when the milkman,
In his horse-drawn cart, approaches
When he has passed, before the game resumes,
I race home to collect a shovel and a pail,
To scoop up the horse’s parting gift
For Dad’s prize roses.
Then, all too soon, it’s time for tea
Of bread and jam and lemonade.
So long ago, the world so simple then.
But still those backstreets linger in my mind
25th September 2019
In the Backstreets of My Mind contest
Sponsor - Silent One
words,
like wind,
sweep away thoughts,
of dark cyclones twisting,
truth, friction, half-lies and neither,
informing or deceit, inane and blowing,
mouths moving on removable friends,
smiles on plastic faces,
syrup or pap,
save us!
no,
not now,
maybe not ever,
this bed we made,
then wish not to sleep,
in piles of lies, cheap copies,
of honor bright, a truth,
and loudly act outraged,
at ending's result,
of liberty,
lost,
in dustbins,
or unrealized dreams,
our milk honeyed mess,
grand finale of men's trust,
bold blueprint, balm to burnt history,
of man's inhumanity to man,
but so easily rendered,
by hungering beasts,
bleating lambs,
slaughtered,
easily by,
those darkeyed ones,
wolves in men's skin,
whispering paradise, serving cold rain,
but push back the dark, oh
upright and clear eyed ones,
regain that firm foothold,
grasping the mantle,
willfully, again,
rise.
Courage to promote humility
Courage to admit your mistakes
Courage to embrace malleability
Courage for noble stakes
To die
To tackle hurdles and obstacles that seem insuperable
To fly high
The flag of integrity for the vulnerable
Whose predicament makes you sick
Although your means seem puny
Dare to kick
Open the door of fortune to the many
Who can’t afford a meal
On their haunted faces no smile to file
Cos to them no big deal
Whether you flaunt designer lifestyle
When their dreams grow leaner
Insufficient sleep on bare floors squeezed in tiny spaces
Like sardines when June weather stings meaner
To rip traces of laughter from faces
Weather beaten, hunger stricken
By force of circumstance
Poverty sunken
In long distances they shamble for every conceivable circumstance
Courage they demand
From you, Mr Big Stuff
Morsels of dry fish from resources you command
Seizing poverty by its neck scruff
Courage to consign poverty to history dustbins
Where you can lock it up
To assuage your conscience and atone for sins
That fill up your steaming coffee cup.
I think we've all had that feeling of feeling
nothing.
Emptied
like the dustbins used to be
and
yet full of foreboding
as if someone is loading
a twelve bore with a cartridge
and your name
is on it.
And feeling that way which is one way
to feel
do you feel like kneeling and saying a prayer?
can you get in the midst of the others who are
there?
does that mean you are no longer alone?
This feeling cannot be right,
that not feeling is
just like the night without stars
dark,
forbidding and back to
foreboding.
Trying to keep it in real time
when all they do
is steal time,
the only thing left of mine
is
this feeling of not feeling
and I'm hanging on to it.
Lunar eclipse plunges me in shadow.
Orbital, I spin in the dark.
Nebulas, I am insignificant amongst many,
Extra-terrestrial, alone and apart.
Limbic, I drift with creation.
Interstellar, I reunite with my past.
Neutron stars, immense galaxy dustbins,
Eat planets while I watch, aghast.
Severance, I have never felt so keenly,
Screaming, cart-wheeling, into the dark.
Trains used to be Chain Smokers.
But we helped them Quit
By Electrifying them.
Dustbins used to be Illiterates.
We taught them to Differentiate
Organic from Plastic.
Communications used to be Lazy.
We motivated them to Run
And to be Quick and Active.
Cultures used to be very Lonely.
We trained them to Mingle
And suspend their Superstitions.
Gold used to be Dusty and Buried.
We pulled it out of Poverty
And helped it Rise and Shine.
We being a Mentor to many,
Still fail to Guide ourselves
Into a Self Disciplined Path.
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