We are all part of the political landscape,
And from that there is no escape,
Even if on the moonscape.
We do however have the power to change that landscape,
If we do not bow and scrape,
But instead vote for those in better shape,
To rearrange the streetscape.
Maybe now it is time to come out from behind the cloudscape
For a better view of the streetscape,
And get out your trowel to scrape,
Til you see yourself in the landscape,
From which there is no escape,
But in which we all play a part in how to reshape,
If we want our children to be in better shape,
Than those of us who only stand and gape,
From above the political landscape.
Categories:
streetscape, absence, allusion, appreciation, celebration,
Form: Burlesque
Oh, how we watch a town go by!
Pieces of life
wrapped against the elements,
going somewhere,
always going somewhere.
From this upper window,
my eye is a searchlight,
sweeping the streetscape.
I celebrate my stillness
by remaining still,
stiller,
and stiller still,
holding my breath,
stilling my eyes till they sting.
I will my stillness
to fill me, envelop me,
hold me still from within and without,
a force pushing out and in,
creating an equilibrium for my soul.
And still the life below
scurries, scampers,
scuttles, skitters,
fizzes, bubbles, lives,
the quick and undead,
each destined
to be still one day.
(September 2021)
Categories:
streetscape, city, humanity, life,
Form: Free verse
Oh, how we watch a town go by!
Pieces of life
wrapped against the elements,
going somewhere,
always going somewhere.
From this upper window,
my eye is a searchlight,
sweeping the streetscape.
I celebrate my stillness
by remaining still,
stiller,
and stiller still,
holding my breath,
stilling my eyes till they sting.
I will my stillness
to fill me, envelop me,
hold me still from within and without,
a force pushing in and out,
creating an equilibrium for my soul.
And still the life below
scurries, scampers,
scuttles, skitters,
fizzes, bubbles, lives,
the quick and undead,
each destined
to be still one day.
Categories:
streetscape, city, humanity, life,
Form: Free verse
On the Street
“Hey mister, you have something for me”?
Flat words emerge in the late autumn dusk from the
hollow where her heart had been before it froze to death.
Face full of life’s dings, her blank eyes expose deep pools
in which swim vile serpentine figures of her past.
Her upturned hand is mummified in a shroud scented with coffee, smoke and pee.
Around us, the annual migration of leaves from their roosts has begun.
Through their swirl on the streetscape, amber post-modernist splotches,
I perceive a troubled daughter; perhaps a failed but still loving mother.
She often prays for her untimely release from unmerited purgatory,
even as she thrashes about in her struggle to survive.
A man wearing my clothes, nausea etched on his face,
is already moving past the unwelcome intrusion on his ordered world.
I bid the man to stop.
He does; takes out some bills, lays them gently on her palm, smiles as he feels her rejoin the living and wishes her a good day;
his world less tidy but his walk a bit taller and he a bit wiser.
Categories:
streetscape, life, autumn,
Form: Free verse
gradients
vivid, humbling
I was collecting a bit of myself
reading anatomy
of animality
spawning the hidden eggs
flecks of echos scarring:
reconnecting to starry night
I could not hold my enrged otherself
and the homely smell of gunshots
orchestrated to send a message of
mayhem – for optic illusion
the reptiles have broken
the law for an oceanic boat
collecting the golden fish
on the burning ghats, streetscape
full of falling leaves and
bloody wings of black crows
SATISH VERMA
Categories:
streetscape, adventure, allegory, angst, animals,
Form: I do not know?