Long Urban Poems
Long Urban Poems. Below are the most popular long Urban by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Urban poems by poem length and keyword.
It’s hard to quantify experiences, but to coin someone else's
original phrase, ‘you know it when you feel it.’
Now that I’m living in Paris, at my Grandmère’s 76-room ‘hôtel particulier,’ I find myself on the itchy edge of wealth, influence and power and while I don’t consider myself necessarily of that class, I’m certainly exposed to attempts to drag me into it.
Many afternoons, as I come home wearied by classes and braced for hours of study, there are these silver trays with little white, gold embossed envelopes (invitations), casually placed where they’re unavoidable, and it’s not unusual to find that one of the CMs has laid out a dress for me and a suit for Peter - though we seldom attend these events.
I find myself vociferously defending my schedule (for the thousandth time) - and I’ve only been in school three weeks: “Grandmère, I’m in med-school, I have homework.”
Let’s wax freeversely of the upper-class (as if I belonged)..
In elegant but confined houses
where lives unfold in drawing rooms
and the inhabitants are sharp and snobbish.
They struggle against social and erotic constraints -
frustrations essential to the drama and pathos of wealth.
Let the rabble be messily heterogeneous
and agenda-set “inclusivity.” It’s nothing to us.
It hardly foregrounds harmony or authenticity.
Civilized people are more reticent and buttoned-up.
it’s sexier and more romantic, to drive toward marriage,
where lovers work to deserve each other,
and individuals integrate into couples.
Failing this urbane integration, love degenerates
into solipsist libertinism and eventually, these
sad outcasts catch their deaths - apart and alone.
.
.
Songs for this:
Am I the Same Girl? by Swing Out Sister
It Hasn't Happened Yet by William Shatner
.
.
hôtel particulier = a grand urban townhouse (mansion) in Paris or other city.
76-rooms - 37 of those are bathrooms - do those count as rooms?
CM = chambermaid (I think Grandmère employs 12 domestic servants).
Suburbia sprawls around the front porch.
Shy deer peep out of front windows
then whisk out of sight.
The groundhog is delivering news of the day,
he thumps his paws, morse coding headlines
only to run back
into his one bedroom apartment under
the roof of his green hideaway.
I could be shelling peas or whittling a piece of wood
with a Buck knife, should be rocking back and forth
on an old hickory rocker
but here in suburbia such things
are recalled
through peepholes in narrowing horizons.
This morning I aim my seeking mind
at the house chipmunk,
who for a while
rests in the morning sunlight;
all night he has been chiseling away
at the concrete step,
perhaps tunnelling out of here into a wilderness
he has never seen.
We all must find a new story for old paths,
why not here in the heart of these urban tracts
where strips of green
imagine wide open spaces?
We were born to travel here and there
every day a new frontier.
This place can be an uncharted map also
snugged as it is into a small glow globe
of back and front yard denizens
a glass that if shaken
reveals new backwoods views.
Concrete dust drifts like sand across a coastal path.
An old woman battered with facial features that hung on her face,
Disconnected and hanging.
She leans forward in her blumonge, waterproof, unwashed nylon flares from Matalan.
They ruffle in the wind as she looks out withdrawn onto the A350.
Her gaze is muffled by a sheen of intoxication,
She tries with the majority of her self to keep her lids from closing,
Mascara encrusted into the creases of her skin,
Almost soldering her lashes together in a gluelike fashion.
Leans hazardously towards the path of oncoming traffic,
Gesturing with open arms to the creatures of metal that push past her.
The only trace of their moment in time is a gust that pushes her body back to safety as it, Confused and unobservant,
Collapses onto the urban stream that claims her yet again.
I watch as she continues to stumble on,
Reaching out to every vehicle that steams on past,
She does not see me.
She is clogged by something greater and more sombre than I know.
She is a perfect reflection of the time and place,
She is what we all are feeling but continue not to show in fear of the outcome.
She is us.
The walkers ... aimless and ambling,
stagger, strut and stumble toward
their solitary scenarios.
An occasional erect form jogs
the stomping sound of feet submerged
in the staccato hum > the rapid fire buzz
the blaring horns of traffic.
The colors of life appear random ...
as flashing retinal after images
on closed lids, constantly
refreshed by rubbing.
A geometry of pretense
is etched into the forebrain of the fragile,
for all walk ... the sane, the insane
the righteous, and the negligent
the skeletal structure
correlating and communicating
the random pattern of life
to the Universal eye
from this earthen plane.
I aged a small number of hours,
none the worse
since posting about Daylight Savings Time,
a radiant playful verse
teasingly succeeded against being terse,
a cogent tangential thread,
where passage of "time"
ranks front and center
this central theme constitutes cultish obsession
with vibrant youthfulness
as if senescence a crime imposed
(at birth) on every purse
son, thus a healthy and prominant grow wing
(nee bursting out all over)
market and cottage industries didst swing
into high gear (make that overdrive)
addressing telomeres shortcomings
justifies tamper ring
with chromosomal genes
to sustain bug eyed sales figures,
asper amazing grace full spy king
scales into the stratosphere,
with cosmetic surgeons hoe ping
where, (particularly among
baby boomer generation)
appear younger looking than offspring
(albeit, whereat either gender undergoing
bust ting bosoms and tightening tushies)
to foster said tune, where billions of dollars
come into play, I haint joe king
this feeding frenzy removing without a trace
(of surgeon's needle) unsightly wrinkles,
stretch marks, blemishes, et cetera
(over a life time) fulfilling vanity
in the name of eternal quest to dupe biology
paying mega bucks postponing twilight/ evening
years not yielding to depredations when dotage
a stark reminder what natural aging doth bring
superficial (skin deep) transformations,
which cannot reboot major organs
allowing elderly to rock with van
halen again, since primary maximal apex
i.e. post adolescence/
early adulthood marked urban
boisterous antics, the tacitly accepted behavior,
that would appear down right foolish
as if elders played kick the can
if chronologically old geezers let Mother Nature
rightfully round up steering committee
gently rowing rickety ship of lovely bones
dutifully paying (chump change) to the bargeman.
My anger has a limit, when I expense my valued time. I mean, appointments were made & confirmed, then upon arrival, cancelled...with little reason or rhyme.
Now my effort taken wasn't simple, as it involved a complex route. Such
as a bus, the train, & then some dense urban forest along this lengthy
commute.
You might imagine my frustration, when on arrival, I'm told
they can't help. As they chalk it up to a computer error, so
what can I do, go complain on Yelp.
Now of course first, I must reverse my trip, through the urban jungle,
to the train and finally the bus. While I search for some kind of remedy,
where I can scream & shout, and probably cuss.
I know eventually I'll calm down, and try to find some equitable recourse. Such
that my time and effort aren't forgotten, and I won't have to call in the big guns
and airforce.
Etched in my soul
is the peace of a lonely ruin,
an old chapel on the skull
of a hill surrounded by pastureland
and wind-swept trees.
Below a lake stretches into the distance,
its waves lapping the mottled shores,
its waters harboring a variety of fishes,
its surface mutating according to nature's whims.
I lie on my bed in my urban hovel,
a small window opened ajar,
I smell the effluvial stink of the dirty alley,
I hear the hellish hustle and bustle
of the mad world outside,
the world that rejected me, leaving me jobless
on the verge of homelessness
on the brink of famine.
Like a somnambulist, I walk away
like a drugged addicted old man,
and limp towards my haven far away.
The way is long, and torturous, and steep.
I fall, get up, knees bleeding, but keep on
until at last I reach the top where silence reigns.
What did I expect to find here?
I look down as the earth stretches before me.
And wonder what must He had felt
with a panorama such as this
as He hang on a tree,
blood dripping from a thousand wounds.
There was no silence then but only jeers.
Here on the skull of my haven is silence and peace
and I wonder: would there have been
silence and peace, had He
not died so many years ago?
Against the back drop of green leaf copses, dulcet bird chirp, and bubbling pavement fountains,
that dawning from the azure blue sky a silken whisper,
to follow street signs on my route to work with ample gusto and much verve,
each metal
pointer to destination a micro mirror on its surround,
stoic indicator of direction, that upright unique urban compass,
clustered by behemoth scenic grandeur at its mint spring zenith,
and surging throngs who sashay in brisk step patterns so diverse yet firmly focussed,
as I am whilst counting on that reference point, that fixed point usher,
that deep-dyed friend at each crossroad safe in the knowledge of arrival,
and in tandem with a spotless day’s heroic toil in bright prospect,
how symbolic are these pathway guide rails to one who warms to flagship growth,
in its august transit on foot slog pitfall strewn road of expertism,
pole mounted emblems, silent sentry solid, detail for me on daily passage.
Today as I got up and climbed down the stairs
Suddenly I tripped, and went upside down
Received minor bruises, some splits in my hair
But what’s more important, I looked like a clown
Suddenly I noticed all the world gone crazy
Men looked like kids and kids went busy
In patting their own backs, and sneering at others
While adults fought over candies and snatching their brothers’
Young ladies basked in neck-ties and collars
They had their curves flattened using road rollers
Meanwhile their boyfriends sported latest bikini range
Why belles didn't leer at them, they found it strange
Traders rushed madly to pay up their taxes
Celebs attending funerals, their tears ran excess
I rightfully felt aghast, because all a nightmare
I put off my specs, and that gave me a scare
My specs were downwards up, looked incisively hopeless
To set its focus rightly in this urban wilderness.
Beneath the city's concrete canopy,
Sunlight filters through the urban sprawl.
A dance of shadows on an asphalt stage,
Nature latent in the midst of it all.
Pillars of industry made of glass and steel,
Create an artificial forest, towering high.
Still, within the gaps, light seeps through,
A modern echo of the open sky.
Within the hustle, a subtle interlude,
Komorebi dapples through the city's veins.
A moment of calm in the urban pulse,
Nature reclaiming what cement restrains.
Crystal leaves and chrome branches intertwine,
Casting patterns on sidewalks below.
A concert of sunlight and structures behold,
A harmonious blend of ebb and flow.
In these quiet pockets, a sanctuary found,
Where sunlight dances and leaves unbound,
Komorebi, a tranquil urban hymn,
Nature's language beneath city's din.