"manholes" poems
We, the voice of the most oppressed,
Work in the profession remaining the most humble,
Throughout histories, as slaves our lives still remain tumble,
With our strangled necks, we are deliberately suppressed
For the centuries, our voices remain unheard,
Like a weeping fish at the sea,
We are treated zombies at the rush of a blood,
Collecting by hand, the human society’s poops & pea
Things for us got intensely worse,
We work as a group with an isolated curse,
For our livelihood, go into manholes as bare-bodies
Mostly get out as dead-bodies
From pathology to oncology,
We are treated untouchables, even by the modern technology
We are the oxygen-offering trees that remain green
Hurting ourselves, collecting excreta making this world neat &clean
With our hand-cuffs we shout and fight,
Rulers remain drunken-deafs to our plight,
Hell with your knowledge, to those who go to college
And keep pushing us to the drainage,
We remain living dead and frustrated, to get our right
When asked about work, we remain dumb and blind,
Fearing the responses to our ***** revelations,
Because humans are unemphathetic and unkind
To get our life some elevations.
Our mind said us “Please think! Please Think!”
When we revolt not to work, societies stink,
We warn, Witness your locality *****
To our sufferings, if you keep blank & empty.
We are a collective voice,
Representing inhuman humanity,
That keeps the society on a poise,
So raise your voice, with a clarity of choice
To get us work with the utmost dignity!
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 9:12 AM UTC
alien abductions and cabinets filled with shelved memories
of the skeletons
on the dark side of the moon
radioactive cover ups
buried deep
beneath chernobyl manholes
and short conversations
with mutant ghosts dissipating in the morning rain
what if a psychopath alien
with delusions of grandeur
chasing dreams of immortality
met a genie who granted him his wish
and became the catalyst for the world religions?
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 7:57 PM UTC
The sun, a heavy spider, spins in the thirsty sky.
The wind hides under cactus leaves, in doorway corners. Only the wry
Small shadow accompanies Hamlet-Petrouchka's march - the slight
Wry sniggering shadow in front of the morning, turning at noon, behind towards night.
The plumed cavalcade has passed to tomorrow, is lost again;
But the wisecrack-mask, the quick-flick-fanfare of the cane remain.
Diminuendo of footsteps even is done:
Only remain, Don Quixote, hat, cane, smile and sun.
Goliaths fall to our sling, but craftier fates than these
Lie ambushed - malice of open manholes, strings in the dark and falling trees.
God kicks our backsides, scatters peel on the smoothest stair;
And towering centaurs steal the tulip lips, the aureoled hair,
While we, craned from the gallery, throw our cardboard flowers
And our feet **** to tunes not played for ours.
2.6k
*we are carbon,
ashes,
craters,
two towers,
after.
rubble,
mist and manholes.
your eyes on a
cloudy day.
the aftermath of destruction.
we are leftover scratches
on gas chamber walls,
corpses,
cremations, and gravestones.
vision without glasses,
abandoned buildings,
the residual newspaper ink on
your palms.
we are static, crumbling nihilism,
aged hair, and dust sifting through
frost bitten fingers.
cavities, apathies,
blank television screens,
sketches, ghosts, absence,
dust, collapse,
driftwood.
we are driftwood, not enough
for a life-raft,
sometimes, where there is smoke,
there is no fire.
i guess it’s where we were always heading,
dulling, deconstructing, disintegrating.
after all, every thing
reduces to this.*
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 10:42 AM UTC
Southeast, and storm, and every weathervane
shivers and moans upon its dripping pin,
ragged on chimneys the cloud whips, the rain
howls at the flues and windows to get in,
the golden rooster claps his golden wings
and from the Baptist Chapel shrieks no more,
the golden arrow in the southeast sings
and hears on the roof the Atlantic Ocean roar.
Waves among wires, sea scudding over poles,
down every alley the magnificence of rain,
dead gutters live once more, the deep manholes
hollow in triumph a passage to the main.
Umbrellas, and in the Gardens one old man
hurries away along a dancing path,
listens to music on a watering-can,
observes among the tulips the sudden wrath,
pale willows thrashing to the needled lake,
and dinghies filled with water; while the sky
smashes the lilacs, swoops to shake and break,
till shattered branches shriek and railings cry.
Speak, Hatteras, your language of the sea:
scour with kelp and spindrift the stale street:
that man in terror may learn once more to be
child of that hour when rock and ocean meet.
2.2k
here's the thing:
there are days when i lose my rhythm of life
my legs stumble across walking flat pavement
i lose my balance on the stable ends of the road
i jump headfirst in manholes meant for excavation
and i refuse to exit the darkness
there are days like these
there are days when i run dry
my mouth becomes a desert crawling with prayers
my flesh is a wasteland of golden opportunity
my vision is a disfigured specter in shades of grey
and every sound translates into white noise
there are days like these
there are days when words do not help
every apology and thank you leaves me raw
i bleed and hurt and bleed and hurt
and every word still leaves me ******
i will allow myself to be empty on days like these
there will always be days like these
these days do not end in salvation
these are the horsemen of my apocalypse
and on the backs of every stallion
is a part of me that tramples over
the greatest dimensions of who i am
they leave prints not easily covered
they leave me a little more scarred
they leave me a little more tired
here's the thing:
these are the days that become my muses
these are the days of great wreckage
and someday these days will be myths
great stories meant for the taking
but for now
this is the truth.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 1:43 PM UTC
The classroom window had a clear view of the park
and when the July clouds painted the sky dark
the boy would start to cry!
Why, the teacher exclaimed, why these tears
it's all so pleasant, and there's nothing to fear
the rain is so welcome, it does only good
so why boy it finds you in such bitter mood!
Saying thus, he would walk back to his table
by the rain upon windowpane, I was inconsolable
brisker than rain were the tears in my eyes
in the thought there would be flood, water would rise
the walk back home would be a herculean feat
with the street flooded, hidden manholes beneath
I was haunted by the spectre of how the water rose
crawled past my chest, and reached up the nose
the swelling river would find me an easy victim
the teacher didn't know, I didn't know how to swim!
When the school bell finally rang, they ran joyous in the rain
splashing and soaking merrily, their way was heaven
only I stayed back, as if my feet had grown roots
late evening I reached home, in heavy sodden boots.
May 20, 2024
May 20, 2024 at 9:42 AM UTC
My inner tongue trips
over her yesterday
morning’s extemporaneous
homily and its retelling
rains down on me
temporal anomalies
through which I’ll slip the bleached
monotony chasing me.
Turn key,
return me
to the upturned
glee of a midnight macadam.
Unmanned, it’s where
the manholes open up to me
their traps of sunken yet
stacked wire-mesh baskets.
They’ve been left
to catch a refused few
turquoise-beaded strings
mixed with ash
feather-dusted by the lime,
tangerine and grape
wing beats of exotic birds
too meek to fly upward.
There the tensile tip of a sweet
and fecund smell grips me
and it squeezes out
visions of too-soon
dying in that bed
where a stripped truth lies
tenderly with the on-putting
of my put-off lies.
A low hiss heralds happy heat
and radiating pings rap me
down the shrinking-shadow hall
away from Hedone’s keep.
In the singular
pleasure of this rhythmic pluralism
my nouns and verbs find
their final agreement:
*All we’ve known
is what a wanting wind’s foretold,
but its chilly, willful voice
can no longer hold us.*
Nov 28, 2010
Nov 28, 2010 at 9:36 AM UTC
Yesterday I fell asleep in class
There was a soft humming
Coming from the heater
A girl was chewing gum
And the professor kept talking
And clicking on the PowerPoint
I dreamt of Greenland
How funny was it
That the Vikings fibbed
But if they were here today
It wouldn't matter
I dreamt of my feet
Walking on rusted earth
Warm and arid
Comforting and challenging
Leaving silt on my soles
As the sun beat down
Bleaching my hair
I dreamt of bazaars and crowds within them
Bartering, staring, leaning
Turmeric coloring hands
Cinnamon choking the streets
Fathers teaching their sons
How to run the business
I dreamt of cold fogs
In San Francisco
Sticking under my eyes
And under my clothes
Towering green
On top of steep cliffs
Still yet ready to evolve
Reminders of my hometown
Of loud sirens and higher ground
Prayers for the parking break
I dreamt of snowfall in the city
In the dank steam rising
From the manholes and the sewers
The palms all frozen and weeping
The sea softly still
The beach deserted
The crowds piled into cafes
Rubbing their hands
Fiddling with Chapstick
I dreamt of the broken White House fences
Of small eyes turned downward
Of everyone screaming
Of my conscience ringing
A bell
It was too late for us from the beginning
I awoke
The professor kept clicking
The girl had spit out her gum
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 6:06 PM UTC
Drains overflowing.
Manholes spouting.
Water bubbling.
Rising and leaping.
Through front doors.
Swelling and sweeping..
Th en turning and twisting.
All through the house.
Furniture ruined.
Carpets all sloppy..
Then it goes gushing.
Out the back door.
Keith Wilson. Windermere. UK. 2016.
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 4:02 AM UTC
My city has a heartbeat.
I can feel it thunder beneath my feet
as I race across her massive face.
She has a whisper, not a voice like we know it,
but a whisper always.
Telling me what she wants and
more so what she needs.
The wind, roaring through my city is her own voice
and instrument, it plays her mournful song.
The song has only three words in it's composition.
Vengeance, justice and hope.
Steam pours from the manholes,
distorting vision, adding one more
in an endless number of reminders that
my city lives, my city has a presence.
Has a pulse.
The gear, the pulsing brain of this
once airborne metropolis,
sits still against the night sky
she remembers as her former company.
Her companion.
From here, from this vantage point, I can see her.
She's more or less a mile,
in any direction from this point, long.
Her streets are a complicated maze,
a spiral built on a grid.
Her boarders are round. She was once known
as the circle city, another grim reminder
of her days above it all.
Within her boarders there are millions
of nooks and crannies. Hard to find, hidden away spots
that people can live in, work in, or hurt each other in.
Her people are aimless.
They are concerned,
they are worried,
but they are proud.
We used to be something,
and one day we will be again,
she will be again.
From here I can see her.
In her entirety,
like no where else in the
whole of her body.
She's beautiful.
Aug 18, 2010
Aug 18, 2010 at 6:50 PM UTC
The cassette player
would sit on the cabinet shelf.
Cassettes were tiny
objects
of mysterious mechanics.
I’d play her over
and over,
daydreaming
about the recording studio&bottled; water
from a foreign country,
about Manhattan avenues&
stretched SUVs,
Lincoln limos fur coats
the flavor of the nineties.
I’m walking the avenues
today.
The same steam as in 1999
blowing up from manholes.
I own these streets
today
with keys to an apartment
jingling in my coat’s pocket.
I came from afar,
I played with words,
and made it here.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 5:44 PM UTC
The internet is like a desert for connection, akin to the city where water is redirected to manholes. People passing you by with screens pressed up to their nose, never feeling or sharing their presence, existence just comes and goes. Do yourself a favor and flee to the wild, put down your phone and throw on a smile. Life will open up as you do and water will saturate the soil.
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 1:08 AM UTC
This is to the under achievers,
To the wanna-be weight losers
Who aren't seeing results,
This is to the kids with drunken dads who only drink ***
To the people who only received as little as bread crumbs.
This is to the children with hush quiet moms,
This is to the ones who lay in bed and
Stare at the ceiling praying for sleep,
But there is no God when you spell it dog,
Barking in your neighborhood at midnight.
There are other people like you,
Other people who know where you stand,
This is to the people who can't stand,
You, so you tell them to sit.
To the people who are always sitting,
And the people who told you to stand up for yourself,
And those selfish girls who told you to "sit down".
Those boys who told you to shut up,
This-This is for the ones who fought but didn’t win,
The battle you went into with only your fists,
While everyone else seemed to have bigger weapons.
This is to the children who cannot read,
But can read lips of their loved ones,
This is to the left hand writers who aren't writing,
"Right", this is to unrequited lovers,
Or the ones who speak "I love yous"
And don’t hear it back.
This is to the none swimmers,
For the foreign talkers who all go swimming,
Because we all sound the same underwater.
To the people who can't find their purpose,
To the ones who took a long walk off of a short pier,
This is to the ones who don't know how to tell a lie,
But they shake their hips,
Because hips don't lie.
This one,
This one is for the non-believers,
To the ones who count by twos,
When there is only one piece of the cake left,
And to the ones who think everything is a piece of cake.
To the ones who wanna be like King Midas,
Who wished everything was gold,
So,
Stay gold pony boy,
It's a long road ahead of you,
And many manholes to fall into,
But don't fall in,
You'll-you'll be fine.
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:29 PM UTC