Short Cityscape Poems

Cityscape catharsis
freedom on frail Horizons
revelation row...

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concrete jungle heat
suffocating cityscape 
~ bare feet loving grass...

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In 
his mind;
busy streets,
a cityscape
view,
on 
canvas,
emotions-
life in filtered
hue.


Ekphrasis after Kirchner's City scene expressions....

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red moon hanging low
over autumn cityscape ~
    homeless kittens prowl


Submitted on October 25, 2018 for contest HAIKU-SENRYU WRITING CHALLENGE 2018 sponsored by DEAR HEART  -  RANKED 1ST...

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Dark lines betray
A lover's soul
Shadows cast
Within the tunneled alleyways
Hidden beneath
Sun sparkled peaks
Traps sprung in loneliness
Baited in despair's longing
Scented
With false hope
Watched over
By predatory pain

A rat scurries
In the silence.

John G. Lawless

1/7/2020...

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vertiginous in a virulent cityscape
gagging on gritty gray gloom
luckless in a loveless race  
   at the bottom of a solipsistic sinkhole

(\\\\?!?!----!?!?\\\\)

exhausted by lucent losses
lying low & flying blindly behind 
sliding back into Whateverland
  where dust confronts the futile frontier...

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Towering 
As towers do
A monolithic mass 
Fills the canvas and the room
Green glass mountains
Deep and dark and without reflection
Draw you in and your gaze

Up

To a thread of eclipsed sky
Where burning 
In silhouette
Clings a raptor
To its man made crag




1/13/2020

Cityscape Poetry Contest
Sponsor Julia Ward...

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At the end of this dark alley
Under the streetlamp, on a boxcar
My graffiti screams
"This is MY territory"!

I've made my mark
In this concrete hell
See my soul
Exploding on this wall

Vibrant urban colors of expression
Shouting without words 
You cannot
Silence me

Cityscape Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
1/28/20...

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vertical

      linear

         lines

tall

twin blocks-

        symbols
              of the
                  night

reaching
to the stars

now

    no
         more

imprinted

   forever

       as 
  
          nine-eleven





adapted for 

cityscape art

Ekphrasis of 'A view of city night' by Georgia O'Keeffe...

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Lights dawning
Sleepyheads yawning
Babies crying
Mothers sighing

Coffee pouring
Busses roaring
Winds shifting
Debris drifting

Laborers hurrying
Rats scurrying
Teen-agers snoring
Alarm clocks ignoring

Stoplights blinking
Drivers unthinking
Airplanes arriving
Passengers surviving  

Tender hearts
Works of art
Lovers part 
A new day starts...

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Beware the man who builds towers,
Who above us needs to see,
For it's shadows not flowers
That will fall to you and me.

In his cityscape high above
Where ever upward his to climb;
Who'd believe he was thinking of
What is yours and what is mine?

Till looking up I see it's true,
Who is first and who is last
And though it seems all bright and new,
A shadow's all it will cast....

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you’re freezing feet and most admired
drizzling cityscape so tired
of boring through the screen
the saddest such machine
unwired

with eyes as dead as cellar doors
and sunken blue to ocean floors
why won't you sing along
this cemetery song
is yours

what ancient ground in time recovers
brittle hearts of teenage lovers
and tried without a trace
no other pearl to place
above hers...

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welcome to the many windowed cityscape
the wanton color of badly mixed paint
with a parade of personal lives
like black stockings full of runs
strafed by formations of overhead birds
whose small eyes think only to judge
passing, teasing wisps of cloudy twirl
confining we dwellers to a sunless cave
thousands and dozens stacked worshipful
stacked tightly knit in churches
longingly longing to be someplace else...

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Horizons cast on harbor mist
     As silver fog on waters kissed
In morning light, it greets the eye
     Just as moon glow waves good bye

Translucent beams in twinkling hue
     Begin to warm the chilly dew
As sunlight peeks to say hello
    And hugs the cityscape below

The morning mist, now harbor blue
     So gently clears to gift the view
Reflections blaze, a windowed world
    Bejewels another day unfurled


2/12/18...

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In the heated jungle city girth
 the roads and highways heating heated birth 
Burst chuck holes crevice valleys bottomless
Those the asphalt mounds needs cutting resurfacing
Rugged on the streets we drive on over Chuck's holes
And Tom's Bumpy are the sidewalks we stride on
Cracks and holes yet we still go on
With in the cityscape we travel 
Rugged are the surfaces  


8/11/22
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr  2022...

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Merciless movement
Atonal antipathy
Nonsensical noise

clarinet crescendo
soaring above
the collided cityscape

Harried hordes
Aggravating acrimony
Terrifying tumult

piano playing
plaintively over
the primal phantasmagoria

Torrid traffic
Alienated aliens
Nihilistic neon

soaring strings
singing through
the striking scenery...

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I snap into the sky and see,

The sparkling cityscape.

I zap awake.

Stumbling once again.

Stumped once again.

Adjusting to the alley that was once a speck of scenery.

The lights aren’t sparkling.

The lights are flickering again.

What I thought was harmony and music-

Is just scrapping and dripping and howling.

This is an alley.

Of the city.

Until I snap into the sky again.

Until then, I hum the song from my dreams....

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Countless vivid colors are splashed on the cityscape,
Bold greens, reds, pinks and blues, allow fancy's escape.
Honestly captivating, this abstract slice of city life,
Constantly emerging, on the streets of joys and strife!

In purples and oranges, midnight black, yellow and maroon,
They express hope for love and peace, to the crowds of June.
The kaleidoscopic city, has such twinkling lights by night,
And walls that often talk, all through the golden daylight!...

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Out of the wind,
the brown carpet is marked
prosaic like petals swept away
My snowdrops weltering in the winter 
not even dead heading
can help their blind eye stalks 

I feel like a pebble
roughened at the edges
and Im gifting no one
Mother nature has unearthed me
My eyes remain shut
I finger past the muddy morass
I feel blazed over
from the cityscape of lingering dreams

Not even the recurring home
joyous and warm
feels my pockets
I am a sunbaked bun...

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Metamorphosis, cotton-pink, serene,
Wafts atop granite watermelon green;

Cool desert mirage comforts night,
Refreshes dry-mouthed cityscape;
Soft dripped from vines, resplendent grape,
Remembered scenes of peaceful light;
Passionate rivers banked ‘n bright,
Magical waters where love takes shape.

Sandia sunsets
Silhouette Albuquerque
Promise tomorrows to come –
Moments forever
Captured in daily blessings
Remind all what matters still.

9/28/2016...

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a rising sun nowhere to be seen
autumn clouds hang overhead
montreal dreary skies weigh down
metropolis threatened under siege
skyscrapers reach but come up short
smothered by a blanket of grey
unfurled over a sleepy cityscape
everyone scurries helter skelter
seeming cold and eerily distraught
autumn colors peppered about
in a panoramic october slumberfest



Published in my photo/poetry book ~MONTREAL UNDER CLOUDS~ 2019

AP: Honorable Mention 2021

Posted on October 26, 2019...

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