Get Your Premium Membership

Tenement Poems - Poems about Tenement


Tenement Years
Reared in ruins, & East London brick dust, lard spread on bread. My figure daubed by days of oil and dirt, a boy by railroad tracks - wrong side. Trains clattered past pumping smutty fumes. Once, a pretty girl visited our tenement, posh clothes, (I mean, not rough flannel), clean hands, neatly dressed. We boys gawped, then then derided. we had no way to acknowledge one so distant from our reality. I...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Tenement Tombs
. for public domain Every crack in the ceiling, dries up every river of dreams. When idle eyes can't view their skies, wadi minds flood over with schemes. And every hole in the floors becomes a bottomless well, where loveless hearts go wishless, dry up in a dusty old hell. The mission bells may toll and toll, but our dungeons, they fill and fill. Sweet flowers...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, poverty,
Form: Free verse



Reflections On a View From a New York Tenement Window, Seen On Social Media
New York Stanza The night is dark and wet, street lights Have no purchase on the empty street beneath; Only the soft glow from the tenement windows Gives form and perspective to my view. From a half open window across the street, A soprano voice pierces the misty gloom: Callas and Casta Diva, the imploring Words quickly absorbed in the...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, imagery,
Form: Free verse
My Tenement
My Tenement is short and soft Its rooms are bright but small Windows here are tinted blue There's music in the hall A roof of light loose shingles Seldom stays in place Uneven wall are vexed by time No siding can replace But is warm and safe here Where laughter shakes the walls Loosening the mortar So bit by bit it falls I have this space and...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, analogy, body, identity, metaphor,
Form: Lyric
Tribute To the Tenement Documentary
Tribute to “The Tenement” Documentary All I know is fix’ n Sweep’n and mopp’n Wash’n And dust’n I reckon, I’m the only one doing work around here I must raise ‘m up right Even in this South side of Chicago slum Late afternoon children play house Others wheel tires down the sidewalk Daddy’s ears are good for trouble Mama ain’t have’n’ it Say...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, america, black african american,
Form: Narrative



Scattered Remnants of the Tenement
In the hollows of my being mental photos move about doors attempt to shut out what was already in - severity plaster walls sharing testimony with squeaky floors warmth mingled with kerosence petals ancient melodies oozing hope ties of embryonic attendance anchors of strength obtained...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, childhood
Form: Free verse
Tenement Lot
A spot On the urban blight Where once stood A faded five Story hovel For the poorest of the poor Fallen in final decay Victim of time Neglect, hopeless poverty Political impotence No flowers, No ripe tomatoes Not even marajuana Just the weeds Of poverty Smashed, broken glass of dreams Dead in their infancy When reality set in No cucumbers, no lilies, A few times An unplanted corpse Of this weeks murder An unholy offering To the Devil, Janitor, custodian, And owner of this concentrated bastion...

Continue reading...
Categories: tenement, angst, death, depression, history,
Form: Free verse

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry