Long Boroughs Poems
Long Boroughs Poems. Below are the most popular long Boroughs by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Boroughs poems by poem length and keyword.
The Iceman the Bronx/Tony Adamo
I DIG THAT THE ICEMAN’S BACK, HITTING THE SPOKEN WORD STAGES IN THE BRONX AND THE OTHER BOROUGHS IN NEW YORK/AFTER ALL HE IS BORN AND BREAD IN DE BRONX/WORD SPITTER/ JAZZ SCATTER/GOT THE CITY TURNED ON IT’S LITERARY HEAD/AS THE ICEMAN WOULD SAY/ GOT TO REDUCE THE OTHER SPOKEN WORD ARTIST’S TO ASH BEFORE I DIE/ MR. B, THE BRONX BOMBER/THE BRO WHO EVERY ONE KNOWS/YOU CAN DIG THE CONGO STREET BEAT IN YOUR EARS THROUGH HIS WORDS/POPIN’ STORY TELLIN’ BREAK DANCIN’ JAZZY TURNTABLE BREAK DOWN OF WORD PLAY/MAN DIG THIS CAT’S FUSION OF JAZZ MUSIC PUT TO SPOKEN WORD POETRY/ HE LISTENS AND SAMPLES INTO HIS MIND HEAD/ THE GREAT JAZZ HORN PLAYERS SOLO’S TO BE TURNED INTO A SOUND SYNERGY OF JAZZY WORDS/ MAN ,I CAN DIG IT, THAT FLOW THE ICEMAN HAS/ FOR THE RHYTHMIC FEEL OF IMPROVISATION IN AND INBETWEEN WORDS/IS PURE WORD ART, CAN YOU DIG IT?/ ON SOME GIG’S/ICEMAN’S SPOKEN WORD JAZZ COMES OUT LIKE COLTRANE’S SOLO ON GIANT STEPS/ HIS GRAFFITI LACED VOICE INFLECTON ON CULTURE AND SOCIAL ISSUES/ WILL HAVE YOU COLLIDIN’ AND TURNIN’ YOUR THOUGHTS INTO GIANT STEPS/ ICEMAN ON THE DECK OF FREE THINKING JAZZ WORDS/A DJ WORD HIPSTER/ THE SPOKEN WORD KING OF THE BRONX/HE’S GOT THAT LYRICAL CONTROL AND NO CONTROL/ MAN, THAT’S WAY OUT/SYNCOPATED RHYTHMS DROP LIKE PAINTED WORDS SPRAYDED ON THE LEX AVE EXPRESS SUBWAY TRAIN/ HE’S NOT FAR FROM THE BEAT WORLD OF KEROUAC,GENSBERG, AND PHIL LAMANTIA/ BEAT POETS OF THE COUNTERCULTURAL MOVEMENTS OF THE 1960s/ MAYBE THE ICEMAN IS A SPOKEN WORD PLAYRIGHT OR A ABSTRACT PAINTER OF WORDS/ SO DIG THIS/HE’S NOT VINTAGE OR INDIE/ BUT WAY INTO TODAY AND TOMORROW AND GONE/DEEP IN THE CATACOMBS OF NEW YORK CITY’S SOUNDTRACK OF BLOOD ,SWEET, AND TEARS/YOU CAN CATCH HIS VIBE/ AIN’T NO WAY TO HOLD HIM BACK NOW/HIS SPOKEN WORD MUSIC DELIVERY JUMPS ON THE ELEMENTS AND COMBINES JAZZ, FUNK AND SOUL WORD TUNES/ TO LAY THE LISTENER OUT WITH HIS DISTINCTIVE WORD SPEAK, SPOKEN JUMPIN’ WORD/ HIS STORYTELLIN’ POETRY WILL BEND YOUR MIND/ THE ICEMAN BREATHS LIFE INTO THE SOUL OF THE SPOKEN WORD WORLD OF JAZZ SPEAK
On a sunny August afternoon
I went to the Bronx Zoo,
somewhat feeling blue...
I hurried to get there soon.
Tired of action movies, bowling halls,
long Poker games and silly talks;
I looked for new ways of sheer excitement...
perhaps animals would offer some merriment.
I walked around and observed hungry zebras
sticking out their long necks reaching for my bananas,
but the chimpanzees snatches them while they were distracted by a snake,
then quickly returned for more...Oh, I laughed hard at their stealthy trick!
The Bronk Zoo is located in the Bronx, one
of the five boroughs of New York City.
He enters the neighborhood bitter
from cold cases old grudges and gripes
his musty breath is shallow stone cold
coming from his angry nostrils transferred
yet again for bad behavior after sucking
the life out of another non suspecting poor
individual while suspended to the desk duties
for a few months he lay in waiting creating slander
perpetrating falsehoods for the weak the helpless
the vulnerable homeless the disabled the injured
veterans families down on their luck he's mastered
the boroughs villages canals valley's street corners
and hills throughout the city children run from his
thumping hoofs craving blood sweat and tears
of urban survivors holding on by mere threads
praying for spiritual guidance redemption from
this evil hoping for strong minded individuals
to somehow provide ethical support leadership
crumbles rams locking horns while performing their
civic duties of washing the scum off the streets
when instead Mr excessive force organized brutality
home invasions intimidation fear corruption
abuse of power rises about the small towns
of little people whose cries are never heard
until a sudden riot approaching engulfing a city
the watchers always look on in disbelief as the flames
crawl block for block windows smashed glass shatters
into a million pieces reflecting the eyes of despair
graffiti begins to cover store fronts meanwhile
friendly fire explodes sifting through reasoning
remorse the crying kind Danny boy oh boy oh boy
a quiet calm cease to behold a sullen peace
the trying time beckoning the emptiest eyes
malice unfolds first responders are grieving
as Mr excessive force is now leaving
I told you long ago that this land called "Romania" has exhausted its sources of blood and dreams.
For 35 years, we've been walking the thin line of memories, on the debts left by those shaped under Ceau?escu,
but they are slowly retreating to the quiet pensions and to the Cold Park of fleeting shadows.
Those who follow are merely dreamers of small trades, a kind of Hittites wandering through markets,
and it's no wonder that Georgescu wants to appoint them Land Leaders, shepherds for a lost nation.
A forgotten model of pueblo, like the Mayans who wove the sky with the earth, boroughs breathing history,
a combination of lost tribes and medieval ages, a time that was never born.
Perhaps another 935 years under an iron hand were needed for Romanians to become a nation of dreams and hope,
but never! They are talking tools that cannot be quiet in the toolbox of history.
Personally, I would lean towards a utopia between an ashram and a kibbutz, a sort of camp finding its place,
under the open sky of a cauldron where dreams and desires mix, grills and stoves, a dance of fire and smoke.
Here, between the heated stoves and woks that swirl the aromas of life, you clearly see we are nomads of the soul,
or perhaps the Brought Ones, nourished by the camps of a present seeking roots in a world of mist and echo.
In this story, we always find the same images, the same longings that do not fade,
a country searching for its identity in the smoke of an eternal fire, a nation dancing in endless circles,
where the past and future meet in a melancholic dance, like a song that never stops.
Family
I've been at the deepest boroughs with them
In deep having real conversations,
and for a moment I thought
That finally I'd gotten through them
Only to be disappointed all over
It's like everytime I find something meaningful with them
They throw it out with the trash
And I have to try again hoping to keep it going
Only to be hurt cause they never learn
They're just those irreplaceable pricks
Pricks that you cut and move them out your lawn
Cause they'll be mowing you up
Mowing whatever sprouts of hope you have
It's like they don't want you growing with them
Distancing themself with anything yours
And still be the ones to say you not giving effort
Saying all sorts of things that break you to hear
Family
I've fought wars in their name
Saying that nobody should talk ill of us
While they're the ones making us lose respect
With the wrong moves cause they rush things
Not even taking a second to reflect before they act
And it hurts more when you realize
That all your life they've downplayed you
You like the cards that are not drawn
Cause you a hand they're not dealing
Only to find you winning even before you start
For you never wish them bad and that's why you get more
The PO£T
Oh no! Train again!
Perched upon parallels of steel,
You roll your way on heavy wheels.
Thundering through town
With a rhythmic rattle and clickity-clack.
Your deep throat rumbles diesel black.
Cars convey a cargo of corn syrup,
Commuters and coal.
You are an ant trail of steel
Packing prizes from a picnic port.
You are the artery of America’s life blood.
--Four full sets of dominoes
Laid in one long row.
--A segmented serpent
Slithering on shining steel.
--A bright-eyed Cyclops screaming in the night,
Awakening children with a fright.
--A termite traveling through boroughs
Beneath the “Big Apple”.
You are the canvas of gangland graffiti
And ferry for freight hoppers
Who dare to hitch a ride.
A network linking limits sea to sea.
Now, rattle past, and make it fast.
I’ve places I should be.
From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda complained Why does God always have to be a man?
I replied He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!
In the smiting chill of a dreadful wintry night
When through every fiber n’ nerve, was the cold bite,
I was sitting cocooned beside my hearth,
Sipping a cup of steaming tea of my choicest blend.
Suddenly my attention was caught by something moving,
Through my window I saw a shadowy figure.
But who would dare to be out on such a night?
It was a night when winter slumber suddenly had grown,
Into a blizzard with blinding snow and hail flooding
When the land lay blanketed under snow’s strangulating clutch
When leafless trees stood motionless like spectral shadows
When animals stayed in their boroughs or dens in hibernation
But what I thought I had seen earlier
Was not a whim or a figment of my imagination.
I clearly saw someone walking, moving slowly or stealthily.
It disturbed me and I wanted to know who he was.
Unlikely to be a robber or a rogue with some sinister intent.
Could be a man who lost his way and needed urgent help.
Impelled by an irresistible urge to find out who he was,
I plunged myself into the sea of snow holding on to faith.
Faint moon light was shimmering between dancing snowflakes.
Not quite sure if I would find an enemy or a friend,
I walked on, pledging I would face what might come.
As I moved closer to that tottering figure
I realized he was someone half frozen in snow,
Desperately trying to get back home,
And I was on a divine mission to be the hands of God,
To direct a waylaid traveler back home,
And save a helpless soul from being frozen to death.
I don’t know what happened to that man beyond that night,
But am sure, he has survived many more winters,
And would be thankful to God for the providential help,
That saved his drowning life on such a fateful wintry night.
Now when I think of it, I feel even a bleak winter day,
Can be made bright by the power of kindness that we show.
It is the concern and preparedness to help someone in trouble,
That ignites our hearts with a divine spark and helps us connect.
I conjured the word persackerley
To go with the region Fazakerley,
Not mentioned in verse most of the time
Because of the difficulty of finding a rhyme,
So this North Liverpool suburb is little known
Though over the years it has steadily grown
With its hospital, prison and station
And it’s peculiar situation
Of being split between two boroughs.
It’s true because my research is thorough,
The boundary being Copple House Lane
Very unusual but not inane.
So thanks to my conjuring persackerly
You now know a bit about Fazakerley
Yes, you people know persackerly
The where and whereabouts of Fazakerley
If you think Its a bit of fun
Then all in all, it’s job done
in thee event
the gothic garlgores
shall fly away
from their ledges
chasing the doves
deep within the hedges
startling bearded crows
ice skating over lake michigan
gazing back
at lake shore drive
in the event
the roaring stone lions
guarding dusable entrance way
shall leave their throne becoming docile
purring at my feet as fountains flow
of fresh running tears
from the garden of forever
everyone will know
in the event
connecting canals valleys with tunnels
throughout sleeping boroughs
gathering within the palm of my hand
in thee event
across the ocean upon white sand
i shall perch weeping
in that final hour bidding farewell
divinely we shall all sup
from the very same cup