"metropolitan" poems
The great New York metropolitan
stretching its vibrancy
trafficking its wears.
Car horns combating in contemptuous arguments
habituated eardrums unwittingly pulsating
Great buildings upward; towering behemoths in grandiose splendor
This great asphalt jungle sprawling its electricity for blocks,
for miles
The jazz of the city continues the chanting; the sounds of bass and the blowing of the **** sax, the horn, the piano
and the drums drumming on its rhythmical beat
Beating hearts feeling the vibrancy; the shock waves of nuances echoing the great hustle
Multitude of voices singing praise to the different tongues;
vibrant in diverse rejoicing, the poetry of men and women
Metropolitans claiming the world condensing into small
blocks and listening to its RHAPSODY.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 7:29 AM UTC
the urban ecosystem
breeds the urban beast;
the two-legged feral brute
they board their clockwork motorcages
the young ones in predatious packs
the old, too weathered to care
animal autonomy
born from sweatshop routines
i imagine myself
as a metropolitan jane goodall
observing and assimilating
taking note of the cacophony of
hoots and and hollers
the city-born mating calls
the high-topped courtship dances
******* civility born from enslaved mindsets
a young, dark-skinned boy
let's rhyme flow freeformed
to the rhythm of a young girls dancing feet
stomps and claps excite the celebration
of abandoned social etiquette
and of my foreign presence
i resemble some exotic missing link
a mix of this, that and the other
my skin, a rare quilt
and this draws more attention
than a gold-dusted african queen
i place myself in the back
peering through the windows of this transit jungle
feeling my heart skip beats
boom...boom...shhhh...
i must've left my rhythm in my other heritage
because i can't catch the ancient flow
but my neck leads my head in bobs
my brain rattles with old soul memories
and i see these young folks on the train
held back by centuries of black struggle
but forever rejoicing in african pulse
forever embodying our ancestoral pride
and i think, how peculiar
on the outside looking in like a fishbowl
exiled from my own brown-skinned tribe
with my oppression fitted like a glove
my blackness a mere disguise
my blackness camouflage
my blackness
not quite
black
enough
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 4:45 PM UTC
neon lights
skyscrapers
busy streets
blank faces
empty pockets
innocence lost
in thin air.
overturned truck
honking cabs
bumber to bumper
broken rib
missing tooth
bruised eye.
rotten flesh
distant shadows
scattered bullets
cardboard signs
wailing women
hushed tones.
pinch of salt
freshly squeezed lime
shot glass
vape juice
white cloud
euphoria.
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 7:26 PM UTC
Lunch for two,
At Metropolitan,
Two ***** Martini’s,
Cheese stuffed olives,
‘Level One’ *****
Lunch side by side,
Your birthday celebration.
‘Cherries Jubilee’,
Finished,
Our day being ‘us’.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 2:57 PM UTC
In the corridors of the body,
In the halls of the jagged ribcage,
I milk the stars in her eyes
In a field of tissue and organs.
They fall from my memory
Into the hummingbird heartbeat
Which makes my body
Nostalgic warm.
I hated the way childhood tasted
Like sticky kisses from unfamiliar lips,
But I remember you softly,
As though thinking too hard about it
Would shatter the memory.
You’ve nested in my brain
And kept my small hands warm
With your big heart.
You are channeled into me
The way west winds
Whisper their messages in and out
Of metropolitan suicide suites,
Telling us not to jump,
To put the knife down,
Not to pull the trigger and
To get off the chair-
You are a lifesaver
In ways we can’t count on fingers
And toes.
My mood swings like a pendulum
In a long-broken clock
And I gently fray at the edges.
I can feel your hand on my face
And I am comfortable like a cloud.
I give my entire heart to you
Neck and all
And in return, you give me yours
Pale, pretty wrists and all.
Somehow, through the dresses,
The curled hair and the pink nails,
I felt you reaching into me
From some private distance
With eyes, hands and body.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 2:35 PM UTC
*Mumbai, City of dreams
Financial Capital and
Most populated Metropolitan
city in India .
India's premier scientific and
Nuclear Institutes
Are in Mumbai .
The film and Television
Industry also is in Mumbai .
Weather Humid throughout the year.
All this to the world .
For Me
My Favourite city and Place.
The best childhood days spent during Summer Vacations
With extended family .
Juhu beach , a favourite hangout
For us all cousins
A Jing bang of sorts :)
Making sand castles
Jumping in and out
of the
Sea waves together
Holding hands
Shouting out aloud .
Memories Memories And Memories
Never Let them go.
In fact ,
Make many More
With the Gen-Next ..
That's what I am in for !!*
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 3:50 AM UTC
I’m trapped in a room where the door is open but I can’t get out,
I’m screaming my head off but no one can hear me shout,
I’m struggling to breathe but there’s plenty of oxygen,
I crave an escape from this concrete metropolitan,
Blinded by this plastic smile they can’t see I’m stuck in my own personal hell,
I’m walking around frantically trying to get someone to notice that I’m an empty shell,
Tragically, I’m physically heathy with food to eat and a family yet I can’t seem to stop thinking about ending myself,
What’s wrong me, that I can’t be happy when I literally have nothing to be sad about?
But that’s the thing the numbness, you can’t stop it, it doesn’t discriminate,
It doesn’t care whether your a man, a women, a criminal, or a saint,
It just wants to fill you up till you can’t get out of bed,
It makes you a prisoner inside your own head,
Who could I tell? How would I explain it so someone could understand when I don’t even understand,
When I’ve succumbed to the madness who will lend me their hand ?
So I don’t tell anyone & suffer in silence, when the thoughts start creeping up again,
I smother them in cigarette smoke wishing I had prescription for Xanax or Vicodin.
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 2:12 AM UTC
stand(ing) here alone in the dark
like a head of tack pirouetting away
to no music - only acrid scruple
of this being with and not being with,
one is always alone.
space occupies the potteries in
the garden as a steady arm of light
stills in its mouth, a flowering dark.
it is only 3 o'clock in the morning
and the heat clambers the wall of
the vacuously atrabilious moment
of just plainly existing. the slender
harlequin of moon, like an old lover
having its own way with me, a child's
yelp coming home — the hermetic
air crushing the light, slivering it
revealing all the ensconced phantasms
too commonplace like a fork in the road
that i know, or the wayward metropolitan
that teems with a concatenation of roads
and gutters bilious with the squall of day.
a figure moves entering a warm miasma,
receiving the star of aloneness,
vacillating between
place and placelessness
telling this originary of repossessing
the moon with a hand in my hand,
pressing a question of where
have you been all the raging while.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC
Vitamin Forest
nurture in nature
healing the soreness
from legislature
metropolitan heart
the sreets pulse like veins
each hour depart
clogged artery trains
a lifeless appendage
bleeding the suburb
with no one to bandage
deluge to each curb
renewable resource
found in rurality
we ask for remorse
draught, virus plurality
Human being cancer
lets all dissolve
to find out the answer
and utter resolve
if the soul of a monster's
sins be absolved
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 12:19 PM UTC
The radio clicks the worn out song
of days gone by and governments gone wrong.
Its static, the rolling of clouds before a thunderstorm.
The newsreaders rustling papers,
High pressure systems on the move.
The hush of the people as they gather to listen
Breath bated, held back by obedient tongues
The bulletins are nicotine bullets,
they're so incredibly easy to get hooked on.
News comes down the wire like commuters on the tube
Jostled and shunted along.
Through underground networks it spreads
With absolute efficiency
And yet the platform on which it departs is more than often wrong.
Outside the park swings are empty,
There is nothing unusual about that
But the kids sit by speakers with their hands over their ears
The high frequency waves dance around them.
This day is marked down as one they wish they could forget.
The headlines blazed into their minds,
More dead.
Oppressed.
Injustice.
Religion.
Elections.
Disasters.
Tornadoes.
Politicians flustered.
Corruption.
Famine.
And Hollywood Blockbusters.
And now we move on to the traffic
Two hundred more just come in from Pakistan
They say there's a pile up in Europe
There's an awful lot of wreckage on the road
and now they are left with no place to call home.
The M1 is running slow again, no surprise in that
Row after row of red brake lights
Join them together to make constellations
And you have your very own metropolitan galaxy.
Because who needs the stars when we have brake lights!
And who needs the moon when we have Big Ben.
Down the telephone lines comes a battalion of lies
“Honey... I'm going to have to work late.'
If you listen very closely to the nine o'clock news
You can hear the reporters wristwatch
And every five seconds that tick on top of his pulse
Marks another slice of news coming in.
The little hand chases the big hand
You cannot tell the time with just one.
The details escape somewhere between
The real world and what's put down in papers.
The trouble with black and white
Is that you miss all the shades of grey
And if you've never seen stars
Then brake lights, are just brake lights
And disaster is just another day.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 9:46 AM UTC
were you a 50's
godchild in the city,
wing-tipped feet
running the streets
all week, ketchin hell...
then you gots that check
come friday
and needed a taste of heaven...
you and the dog pound
swung mid-town
to broadway & 47th
after 9,
and joined the line spilling
from the royal roost round 48th...
by 10, the joint was jammed
with gents well-coifed,
matching honeys, and the sounds
of money being made:
chime of silverware ~ cling,
and the cash register's ~ swish cha-ching,
and the chatter of guests,
servers and bartenders
doing their thing ~ wah da bing
then the lights dimmed
leaving a semi-dark haze
of gray smoke swirling
over the crowd,
and mc symphony sid
grabbed the mike:
*"...welcome to the friday nite jam session
at the metropolitan bopera house
ladies and gentlemen...."*
hysterical hoots and applause
followed
as the circular spotlight paused
center stage,
unveiling:
~ the miles davis nonet ~
featuring,
max on drums,
john on keys,
gerry and lee on sax
and a genius
on trumpet
'twas the birth of cool
and soon the rhapsody
of modern jazz
waxed hypnotic,
casting a spell
over god's children
when budo chased lady bird
down allen's alley,
spittin'...
riffin'....
boppin'...,
poppin'.....
superfluidity
like acid through
varicosed veins
the earth stood still
it seemed
for 4 thrilling hours
as heaven rained a rifftide
onto the lucky crowd...
and dewey's sublime trumpet
exorcised the devil
from the week that was...
~ P (Pablo)
(7/24/2013)
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 5:13 PM UTC
Dissatisfaction an empty abyss
Deep in now a well known limb
Hope severed, intangible, a ghost
Screaming without a sound
Bleeding without a wound
And these strings fatuously tuned.
Inebriate and stumbling through
an ocean of nobodies, all together, unseen
Without a purpose, an insect
Abiding another nobodies law,
Rebellion restricted by a Metropolitan claw
Steel bars in my own conscience
Dreaming the escape, yet alone
Soaring through time
Captivation doesn't last
A welcome blessing and an unintentional curse, yet alone
and innocence is now grown
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 8:34 AM UTC
[These statues were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum after the sculptor's death. The figures alluded to are the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln, and the monument in memory of Mrs. Henry Adams, the original of which is in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington. --Max Eastman]
POET, thy dreams are grateful to the air
And the light loves them. Tho' they murmur not,
Their carven stillness is a music rare,
And like the song of one whose tongue hath caught
The clear ethereal essence of his thought.
I hear the talkers come, the changing throngs
That with the fashions of a day surround
Thy visions, and I hear them quell their tongues,
And hush their querulous shoes upon the ground;
Thy dreams are with the crown of silence crowned--
Though they feel not the glowing diadem,
Who sleep for aye in their cool shapes of stone.
Nor ever will the sunlight waken them,
Nor ever will they turn their eyes and moan,
To think that their brief Poet's life is gone.
The tender and the lofty soul is gone,
Who eyed them forth from darkness, and confessed
His spirit's motion in unmoving stone.
His praise upon no mortal tongue doth rest;
By these unwhispering lips it is expressed.
Soon will the ample arms of night withdraw
Her shuffling children from the twilit hall--
From that heroic presence, in dim awe
Of whom the dark withholds a while her pall,
And leaves him luminous above them all.
Then are ye lost in darkness and alone,
Ye ghostly spirits! And the moment rare
Doth quicken that too sad and nameless stone,
To move her robe, and spill her sable hair,
And be in silence mingled with the air;
For she is one with the dim glimmering hour,
And the white spirits beautiful and still,
And the veiled memory of the vanished power
That moulded them, the high and infinite will
That earth begets and earth does not fulfil.
2.2k
Within the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently,
Leaving the restless crowd awhile
As ships find shelter from the sea.
The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment’s space,
And thro’ the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.
Ah, not from Rome but farther still,
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you stooped
To find the present with a kiss.
2k
High rises burst from soft Earth’s flesh
Was it even ready for us?
From an extraterrestrial’s perspective we’re a disease upon this gentle cerulean Elysium
I’m living in the mouth of duality
I hear it speak as I leave my block and give a peace sign to the abandoned residences in progress
On the block I currently live, the sidewalk is cracked into drunken mazes and yet
Directly across, the neighbors stand upon freshly minted asphalt and into a metropolitan construct made for the modern brain: built in amenities, contemporary textiles and garage parking
Are we next?
To be bought and sold, if so, can we at least have a plan for the residents?
Will tenants be invited to the newborn paradise? We have the budget to feed cement trucks faster than hungry mouths. It’s become a bad habit
yet I sit by the man-made imperfections
hoping someone cares enough to drip their Eden into the palms of my neighbors
If time will tell I’ve been getting quite the silent treatment
Travel a little deeper and….
Cosmopolitan crossroads coexist with beggars and lost folk….
Since when was the speech divided between affluent and broke?
"IDK?" The duality replies
I thought you’d say that.
Aug 4, 2021
Aug 4, 2021 at 6:14 PM UTC
The Mona Lisa assaults my brain,
Acrid perfume polluting my lungs.
Does the Mona Lisa not care if I die?
I see her chuckling,
Waggling her finger,
Saying with bitter ****
"You'll never be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art."
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 4:24 PM UTC
August still catches in my head like that Manhattan melody
when he was my little vial of Novocaine.
when the moon showed her face and we slept on my floor
and our knees and hips and
shoulders—all the hinges of our bodies—washed with
a twilight of mauve and Bordeaux.
And one night he painted me with
two rows of clenched teeth—dipping in and out of white pools of Selene.
I have a bed now that he has left
with sheets that billow on the right side,
with real blankets that aren't hospital blankets.
And he is my little vial of Novocaine
that took a train to states away. And the miles
between have left me with a weight in my chest that I'm sure fell from
his suitcase. I've got
bones made of buildings,
and a metropolitan heart,
and a steady smile
knowing this same moon hangs over him and that borough.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 4:12 PM UTC
Any brighter and
streams in the ditches
would look like Cuyahoga River
across Cleveland during the 1960's
There is no fire, only flies
who make bright their bellies
and flash for show like the perverts
in metropolitan inner city parks
Enticed to the flies, like moths
to the ceiling globes,
we gather jars and lids
with air holes hammered hard
No walking as we streak
along gravel roads built after WWII
when rationing was lifted
and road speeds jumped
Flies caught one by one
are smashed on white tees,
luminous signals for drivers
alert to the folly of our play
Our madness endures
until Ball jars become
dim lanterns of joy for us and jail
for the bugs doomed
to die before daybreak
until swept from the garage
floor as we plot our assault
on airborne glimmers along
tonight's roadsides
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 8:37 AM UTC
Folklorico serenades the street
from an open third floor window
a rhythmically refreshing sound
compared to the silence
the calming silence
of south 2nd street
in Brooklyn
hardly escaping the shadow
of the metropolitan center
this little pocket has escaped
the hustle and bustle
that traditionally defines New York
the chatter from the stoop
three gentlemen discussing
'stop and frisk' and 'being processed'
the corner store as old
as the neglected blue mailbox
that now serves as a canvas
for local taggers
new eateries and humming bars
full of new immigrants
out of staters, artists
from places not so welcoming
to their brand of queer
here on this quiet street
I watched the new grow
among the old
this place was a garden
of concrete, culture
and dreams
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 2:02 AM UTC
~Bio-recycling biography
about nothing, really
Green Bin outside
the front door
yawning occasionally,
patiently waiting
for Friday;
big
Bio-recycling day.
City
of
Toronto,
metropolitan bio-by-law.
Green Boxes
of the neighbourhood
standing
like soldiers
on the sidewalks
of the metropolis
expecting professionals
to empty their insides.
Bones
cooked for hours
to make the best
chicken noodle soup,
the remedy for every ill.
Rotting remnants
of family banquettes,
over the whole week,
potato peels for the best
potato salad,
secret grandmother's recipe.
Egg-shell colour
colours the interior decorator;
last tomato of the season.
Pity,
spaghettini,
spaghetti
sauce
dreams.
Coffee grinds.
Stainless steel
espresso machine
sighs
******** fireworks
remembering
the coffee grinder.
Tangerine, orange peel
freshly peeled
still pines for Florida.
Stop yawning, Green Bin,
tomorrow
is Friday.
Oct 14, 2010
Oct 14, 2010 at 2:08 PM UTC
It hurts, it hurts more than when I ended up in hospital, I slipped from the curved metal stairs and cracked all my ribs,
You sat on the frosty steel chair and fed me warm leek soup all day, I was high and *we cracked *** jokes all through the visiting hours*.
Or when I fractured my right leg and couldn’t walk for months, you wheelchaired me to all my revered museums,
And when it rained that evening and I felt trapped and pathetic in the ****** wheelchair,
*You lifted me up and twirled me around and kissed every sore spot in my body including my terrible heart,
Till I started laughing, all giddy and intoxicated with your droplets brushed lips*
Or when I burnt my fingers while making green curry and you had to take me to infirmary,
They bandaged my fingers in bubblegum pink gauze an told me the scars would never leave and I wouldn’t be able to write or hold you for a week,
You made me churros that whole week with Swiss choc dipping and kissed all my scars away, painting vibrant swallows on them.
I loved you, so much it made me insane, but it also made me breathe. Funny, how the direction of the wind has changed.
It hurts now, more than it ever did, I stand on the steps of metropolitan museum of art and the ache in my veins magnifies,
The longing ablaze like all your plaid shirts, nirvana records and all the synthetic lilies you gave me, quoting they will never dry up, Like our love will always remain, burning on my terrace
Funny how, now I don’t believe a sentence you said.
I sing all the songs we loved for the last time, to get it all out, of my system and bleeding heart.
My lips get greedy for the praised lyrics and midnight kisses.
The rocking chair in the balcony swinging in the breezy night I hope it’s you, my eyes left disappointed at the empty gloomy sight
My heart getting accustomed to Bukowski instead of much devoured Rilke.
Sometimes in life you never understand why they left, why it ended all of a sudden?
When did you stop loving me and when all my importance vanished into thin air like you did?
Sometimes all that is left to do is accept it and move on, and that may be the seemingly impossible part.
Sometimes you just have to pour water to the vivid fire for putting gasoline was proving to be poisonous and CHOKING.
Jul 6, 2013
Jul 6, 2013 at 6:07 AM UTC
Oh ferocious angels,
lionesque children of Eden
on narrow streets and polluted alleyways
whispering cruel things to each other,
you're radiant in your belligerence
and as my enemies you are virtuous.
Beside me in this carpeted rectangle room
a faint glow exhales
from the tall alpine ivory lamp illuminating
firefly wings of blossoms
alluringly exuberant in the afternoon sun-ray
diamond shine and shimmer.
Dusty tin roofs billow
firewood smoke in the thick violet shade fog over-top cabin potted
mountains and hills sprouting firs and rose bushes abounding.
Spectrum cast chandeliers echo staircases which
jot up and up arduous ruby landings,
hardwood floor cracked
and stacks of novels ballast the senescent hallways
of bookshops where poets works and journals diaries and memoirs blur
the serpentine walls with memories.
Angelic the soul which is too often contaminated with
avarice rebellious to concord living
harmonious midst dew grass and calm waters in residential lakes
empathy equanimity, far from Bodhisattva.
Few kinds of darkness transcendental
subduing other darkness to a weak shadow.
There's an importance to admiring the delirium of metropolitan roads on roads
this intricate unspoken connection to those who
rest by stoplights and crawling traffic metallic molten aura of
cars in July heat.
Paying attention to the open window of adjacent apartments
where Mr. Norris waters his tulips and shares this moment
modern meditations practiced
finding a balance in such an anxious
volatile world like this.
Oh ferocious angels, impetuous
forlorn seraphs,
sing! sing and soar!
Boundless is our ardor
and our passion.
Unenclosed is the lion
in it's bloom.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 3:09 AM UTC