"smoggy" poems
I can see your sky exploding, falling overhead
Killing all your hopes and dreams, filling you with dread
Killing all your sons and daughters, babies in their beds
I can see your sky exploding, and I can see the dead
I can see your sky exploding, I can feel the fear
I can feel the pain and anguish, resistance drawing near
I can feel your endless sorrow, I can see the tears
I can see your sky exploding, all the way from here
I can see your sky exploding, I can tell you're lost
I can feel your righteous anger held at a great cost
As they destroy all your homes and schools, and burn up all your mosques
I can see your sky exploding, I can see your loss
I can see your sky exploding, I know that you can too
Smoggy clouds of smoke and dust where it used to be so blue
I can see the people running, frightened and confused
I can see your sky exploding, and I don't know what to do
I can see your sky exploding, I can feel the fright
I can see the soldiers coming, trampling your rights
I can hear the dogs of war, barking as they bite
I can see your sky exploding, lighting up so bright
I can see your sky exploding, but no one else can see
Everyone surrounding me is blinded by TV
I can feel your raw emotion, for I have empathy
I can see your sky exploding, though it isn't me
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
Citrus trees, tomatoes, and fertile soil
Garliconiongingersoy
and ant spray
Contentment
Cigarettes and hate
Aqua Net
White school paste
Bitter slimy spinach
and blue ditto ink
Confusion
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Baseball glove
Mown grass
Fresh popcorn
Sadness
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cramped, stale cars
Claustrophobia and
Cat litter
Loneliness
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Petroleum
Locker Rooms
and Perfume
Indifference
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Smoggy skies
Salty beaches
Beer trucks at each end of the block
Love
And...
Blessed...
Divorce
Nov 20, 2011
Nov 20, 2011 at 3:13 PM UTC
The purple haze
of heather had
dwindled in the sunshine.
Bluebells were breaking too,
their florets a flutter.
Smoggy incense rolls in
off the horizon smoking
over the crumbled mountaintops,
their peaks unable to break the surf.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
Society is plain
Society is black,
Society is what you forcefully swallow for a midnight snack
Society is blood that drips down your eyes
blinding you, keeping everything in disguise.
Society is a swollen throat trying to breathe.
It imprisons your mind when your mind tries to leave.
Society tells you:
“You can’t.”
“You won’t.”
“You never will.”
Society is the voice in your head
telling you life isn’t a thrill.
it kills, hurts and tries
to feed you lies as you pitifully cry.
Society tells you that smoking the green,
kills more brain cells then staring at the television screen.
Society takes the color out of the sky,
and lights up your twitter.
It is never shy and never ever a quitter.
Society is a spy that no government can catch
because society is the government, waiting with a watchful eye.
Society is also dead trees, wilted leafs
and smoggy factory smoke passing by.
But most importantly society is you
and I.
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
3:8:15 - Kosher pinot noir toasts the snowflakes that the eider brings, just as the Ash bows ache; naked and starving. Hurdling through old bedroom windows, giving those reasons why pennies are wished first into window wells. Smoggy gawkers, locked into an image shaped by organic lines and gestures. The two smoker- cure their hours reconnoitering in skyrise stairwells, discussing recipes for fixing wounded hearts without the peaceful frequencies she speaks into two styrofoam cups with strings pierced through their innards. Much like the story of how two people meet within the timespan of the living.
Even the Moon Men eat space cakes to loosen their chests, from the apathetic laws that began to govern their personalized truths. Not a mug with a name on it bought after an almost very cool free-art reenactment of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Love is not a sentence I can choose not to awaken.
It's the difference between having a one night stand rather
than keeping a toothbrush at each other's places.
Even on a Saturday night, we could fasten ourselves
to one another. Even if it's only you and I, who are you to
say it's not a party.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 9:47 AM UTC
Sweetheart
A gritty man said the world is a place to bury
into. take both feet, heels deep in the city.
coughing through thick smoke, he said
you will know that people are as stuck as gum under the rails
I responded: maybe they are taking their time
when I sleep my eyes don't close
I beat dust with my breathing and let my eyelids flutter at the fan
dreams of sailing entice water from my eyes
I reach over and let droplets cascade into your hair
it always smells like coconut and driftwood
Each morning you wake the sheets are chilled and my is suit warm
I breath perfume from your blouse while I type, see your strawberry hair fall
to your eyes. I relish in solving paper stacks and late night empty floors, yet
I crave the sound of our garage door as it closes behind me
I let my hands fall, careful to miss my pockets
sliding them loosely at my side.
I go out into the clean cut gray window gallery, rows of traffic
The man's smoggy afterthoughts say the subway is as beautiful as
his exhales, sleep is only a man who can breathe both above and below a great sea
and suits secretly climb up slides and swing across monkey bars-
each craving their own private happiness.
Sweetheart
all I really want, at the close of each day
is to make you peanut butter truffle cheesecake and lemon drop tea
paint the bathroom cherry red
rub your feet during movie nights
and hold your hand while we sleep
Sep 12, 2012
Sep 12, 2012 at 12:19 AM UTC
The sky is solid, gray, motionless.
Shuffling bodies with obscured shadows
Make haste for shelter
From the stark, lifeless outside
With its grass that only lives if watered,
The always leafless trees,
And the carcinogenic air.
Looking upward,
Through the smoggy haze,
One sees the neon silhouettes
Floating in the sky,
Atop the glass and steel monoliths.
They speak to those below,
Of subtle, clandestine oligarchy.
Subconsciously belittling the anonymous masses,
"We are Titans, you are rats."
Say the towers,
As the populace quietly passes over stained concrete and asphalt,
Wearing breathing masks,
Saying not a word to the thousands they pass.
We make haste in this world.
We cannot afford to help a stranger,
To make a detour with a view,
To get your child that gift they really want.
So fiercely we have been strangled
That empathy is illogical.
"What a world" we all say,
As we avoid eye contact with the hungry;
As we change the channel from the melodramatic infomercial
About starving, disease-ridden children somewhere else;
As we console ourselves with hollow entertainment and intoxication,
To keep the guilt at bay,
To keep the thoughts at bay,
"Just do what's best for you,
Don't step out of line,
Shuffle in,
Follow the queue.
That's all you can do."
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 3:46 AM UTC
Toes dip into the smoggy air
Count them down
10, 9, 8
Leaning forward
Diving into the city below
He ran as fast as he could
Tears streaming down his face
Reading that letter, flabbergasted
Every second mattered
As these stairs pulled him down
Deep breath in, exhale
Thoughts run rampant
A single tear falls down
She leans further ready to follow
She was about to plummet
As the sun rises, casting her shadow
Her shadow crying
Telling her not to go
His hand clenched tightly on her wrist
Trying his best pulling her back in
His tears form the stars
Their shadows cast upon the moon
She screams 'let me go'
Tears, drip drip drip
He took a deep breath
Exhaling, screaming his heart's out
"I've always loved you!!!
He doesn't love you!! But I do!!
And always will be!!!
So please don't leave me!!!"
She stepped back
Tears streaked her face
If he love her
The end could wait
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
just a little bit o' asbestos
unwrapped from 'round the pipes,
yellow-green arsenic soap
in the bucket to make me clean
to eat... sump'n to munch on
like crunchy lead paint chips
and oh, how i love the smell o'
greasy diesel dip -
it reminds me of my last birthday
when we ate my smoggy cake
the kerosene ran dry that day
and smoked us to the street
our tummy aches that time forsake
'cause doctors cost real money.
but, hey, no choice in winter
- Obamacare or heat -
couldn't type his site with frostbit nubs,
no matter what the hype.
life ain't free,
so as fer me, i doctor fer myself
hell, in 50 years i've seen nothin' yet
some bourbon wouldn't fix.
but never in this tidy place we come to call our poverty
has ever lived the lovely stench
of crisp, green, perfect money.
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 10:30 AM UTC
Along the brittle sandy shoreline fish carcasses, pungent like morning breath and stale milk attract unlikely furry hunters before noon. These unleashed dogs trot slowly. The burden of the sun cracks feverishly upon their sticky, rotted coats. Their tongues roll out helplessly dragging their intimidation down with them like foolish clowns on Sunday morning. On the upper crest of the beach an old woman sits dutifully in her black latched beach chair. Her eyes, beady and gray reflect out into the vast lake. She does not blink. Her cottage, crafted purely of cedar wood comforts like the smell of an old book. On rare occasions athletic fresh water fish pierce through the water’s surface. Flying fish echo their rippled splashes throughout this vacant canvas. But still they are rarely seen or heard. There are hardly any tourists that visit cedar bay. No oiled teenage girls or playful sand kneed toddlers. Once in a while a charcoaled pit circled with empty beer cans lingers in the morning light; its smoggy remains clings tightly to summer clothes that will soon reek of burnt leaves and gasoline. When the time is right, some noble person will try to rehabilitate this stoic landfill, to lift
away stark-lit layers
ill suited for human plea-
sures. It shall rest in piece.
Sep 24, 2010
Sep 24, 2010 at 2:31 PM UTC
Holding on
For years;
Dangling
Fighting
Struggling,
Through snowy Decembers,
Lights strung up
branch to branch,
Through awakened April's
tulips reaching skyward
Through smoggy Augusts
Blonde beauty's sunbathing in the grass
The leaf had seen it all
But in the blink of an eye
The tree became old
The roots became withered
As did the leafs grip on the branch
And a final autumn
Came to rest in the air
And the leaf began
Reminiscing of being green
And full of life again,
It continued to let go
More
And more,
Until one day,
the leaf fell from the tree.
Brown
And shriveled
Falling
And sailing
Through the breeze.
Once the leaf changed its color,
It did not go back.
The leaf will never be attached
To the branch ever again.
So there it stayed,
Lying on the ground
Tossing and turning,
For another eternity.
-----------------------
He seems happy
I should just let go
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 6:12 PM UTC
Anxious for my
Afternoon embalming.
Flushed free,
Laying down the masonry
Of trees yet
To be.
I must confess I want a jack and ginger.
My favorite manieur de mots,
Your offspring making
Silk of my spit.
Two book wormholes,
Circumventing travel,
Welding my smoggy sand castle
To the grey island you anchor.
Would you care to
Fatten up Elpis
With me?
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 9:37 PM UTC
As strong as the mystic Oak
as bountiful as the Chestnuts burden
liken to palm tree on a lonely island
kind as a spring apple blossom
Sometimes weeping liken to a Willow
bending in waters hiding tears
singing like a London Plain
in the smoggy city streets
****** as a Beach Tree
glorious as mountain Pine
oh how wondrous
in avenues they do bind
See the Elms worrying
as beetles invade their bark
undermining their existence
to their extinction
Yet the amorous smell of Cherry blossoms
does late at night fill the midnight air
and all comes to winters realms
Christmas presents are laid under it's frame
of the greatest of Pines
As the Sycamore sings
bare and wanting of summers light
holding strong at winters bite
this is why I love trees
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 6:29 PM UTC
Inhale-
Exhale.
A smoke signal plumes from my defiant lips
Shivering in the cold
And rises into the atmospheric light of the city
It was never meant to be an SOS
It was intended to say
"Save yourselves"
But as far as I can see it has fallen entirely upon deaf ears
As just one voice in a confluence of voices-
A river of smoke signals climbing steadily into the smoggy air
Like prayers
To a god we know we don't believe in.
Inhale---------------------
Exhale.
Save yourselves
And it twists and bends and floats away
To meet the others
All screaming some collective emotion that will be left otherwise unexpressed;
And it is probably better that way.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 10:21 AM UTC
Him....
He was sunshine and rainbows, the calm after the storm.
he was the brightest days after the darkest night's.
He was mourning doves in the crisp summer morning air, singing melodies I loved to hear.
He was the sweet coffee I drank while watching the sunrise, he warmed me inside and filled me with a dose of happiness.
He was like chocolate. I craved him as much as I craved sweets as a child, I wanted him every day.
He was the sight from the top of a mountain, beautiful.... he took my breath away and filled me with adrenaline and contentment.
He was the changes during the seasons, with every side I saw I loved him more.
He was light, like a breeze between the tallest trees.
he was the trees. He held so much life, with holes inside of his body for everything he loved, he was home.
He was the city I lived in, I knew every street, every turn, He was a map I had memorized.
He was my home.
Until he wasn't.....
He is a hurricane, the eye of the storm. the rain it pours like the tears pour from my eyes.
He is the clouds in the sky on the darkest days.
He is the silent echo in the dewy morning winter air, there is an eerie feeling that he leaves me with.
He is the bitter taste, the burnt tongue as I struggle to swallow the scorching black coffee, he doesn't fill me the same.
He is the green vegetables I hated as a child but I knew I needed to grow, to thrive, to live.
He is the sight of an airplane in the sky while standing on the ground, he makes me feel so small.
He is the seasons in the arctic, always so cold. I trudged through the ice, the snow, I ran as fast as I could while the cold air burned my lungs, I heaved and gasped while falling to my knees.
He is the humidity in the southern states on a hot summer day, the air so thick and smoggy it makes you want to crawl out of your skin, he doesn't flow the same way.
He is no longer a tree, rather now the proof of one that once lived. He no longer holds a hole inside his body for me. He's now soil compact so hard you'd swear it was concrete, but a piece of his root still lives and he is now building a new home for someone else.
His need for practice of deforestation was perfectly executed on me.
He is a foreign city I've never been to, he is now a map I get lost trying to understand stand.
He is no longer my home and I,
I am lost..
Him, it was always about him.
Aug 9, 2017
Aug 9, 2017 at 1:51 AM UTC
The “in” soon to meet the “evitable”
A conclusion infallible
Because
Tis true, tis true
It’s front page news
In the “Obvious Times”
Your failure to realize
Doesn’t minimize
The obvious
So let’s stretch that word
To
Oblivious
Cause that makes more sense
At least it’s a defense
Weak kneed as it may be
It certainly falls under
The Ex
Cuses
Category
So humor me
Do you see
Now
Do you see
Not yet
Okie Dokie
Annie Oakley
Let’s take another shot
How bout
A Story
Why not?
There once was a town
Where a man came around
Selling all kinds of
Potions and lotions
Devotions and notions
Despite his seemingly
Lack of emotion
They made him Mayor
Not long after the layers
Of Lies and greed began to grow
And wouldn’t you know
Though it rarely showed
The town grew tired
And wanted him fired
Longing for days of old
A stronger mold
Simpler times
Merrier rhymes
(less parking fines)
Smog free days
Guiltless lays
And poison free food
Put them all
In a better mood
Boy oh boy
Were those the days
Back before the smoggy haze
So we’re back to the beginning
Of this story I’m spinning
The “in” meeting
The
You know
“evitable”
Well
That is what happened
To that Colonial Captain
Who brought mischief
And what if’s
To that poor little town
He lost his crown
Among other jewels
He suffered fools
Then suffered
At their hands
So this story
Is a caution
to all distant lands
(and close ones)
The conclusion
Is always
Inevitable
When toying
With the table
Of Universal design
So don’t mess with nature
And all
Will be fine
Jul 3, 2013
Jul 3, 2013 at 2:08 PM UTC
Jailed with all the other squawking birds
confined, it never flew and barely grew
& never knew the mimicry of words
sanguine, foul molting cockatoo in the corner
lowered, bloodied, the lowliest in a pecking order
his owner's a loner, a collector of tinged newsprint
entombed in brick & mortar - nomad minus footprint
and his birds, perched across wooden dowels
proceeded to empty their millet'd bowels
onto sheets of unfinished poetry
correctivewhiteoutmisery
so, he, being miserly, wouldn't shell out the reader's fee
to the greedy posthumous publishing company, yet
another relic in a mortuary of literacy
he was just another faceless, bearded bard
and with the old coffee grounds
he would discard
piling mounds of compost, broken bound
his compositions decomposing in the attic
warbling hiss, winding tape spool. ghosts
searching for signals amongst the static
he awaited revision of his works
ill, amidst the scattered ruins
red ink, gold leaf & carets^
he, impetuous, slumped further into his doldrums
though, all public grievances were withdrawn
crass, he prattled on to his dolorous birds
still oblivious to his defunct words
He lied dormant, comatose
in the 3rd degree infirmary
there was once a pretty lass
who could exhume the pristine
glass contents of his tinsel'd tomb
His malady, he once named Gamine
lived in a stretched-white canvas room
she eyed his burnt pile of vile-dirge verse
as mayflys & junebugs, & smoggy dirigibles
fluttered gently out of her empty purse
she grew on him like a cancer
for she was God's embellishment
pallid and perfect, and he cursed
her love as it ebbed and flowed
her aureole glowed, safely stowed
in an airship's overhead compartment
she was flying home for
there was no other answer
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM UTC
I’m lending Trayvon Martin my pen
because it might be enough to clear the static,
because it may be enough to point straight through
the thick smoggy thoughts of society and law.
If I was a young black man, which “I" am
I’d be a little upset that someone killed
my brother. Never mind my other dead brothers,
or the other cases I see of police treating
people like me with inequality.
Should Trayvon have surrendered himself to
Zimmerman. Should young black men have to
be passive to stay alive. Do we allow
people to shoot shots in
the chests of most resistance.
What should black men do? It seems best
to cry, but I don’t feel tears coming.
What should any man do, expect think
clearly enough to know when something
is wrong. As for Zimmerman he is not
evil, but he is a killer, and his brothers
blood is on his hands. He should at least
cry, or try to feel the tears coming.
The only voice that speaks is the
word of the law. Even Trayvon is silent,
the dead hold no grudges, and gunmen
go dumb under the cries of spilt blood,
I keep telling myself justice is process
making better days from dark ones,
but it seems like every bright generation
has to step aside for the tears coming.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 8:59 AM UTC
The leaves in winter, they all fall in place.
In endings hidden, embers of a new life.
Every once in a while an unknown girl
walks up close on a smoggy night;
And an awkward lank woos her with
half-withered roses by the south bank;
Going after severed kites,
landing now by the memory lane:
by the Thames, holding a palmful,
saying, this river's named after you:
she has a dimpled smile;
By the lakes, deep at night, when the moon
walks over the waves, dancing with the swans;
Where the Lee bends around the corner,
a red bus emerges out of the mist,
a hero on chilly nights of the early autumn,
when the dhak welcomes the Goddess home.
Teals, wobbling out of the pond, by
the temple of love, closed for ages now;
Crimson paint dripping from the evening
sky at the corners;
Every day when loving this way
seems like a picture painting away,
get lost walking by the Thames;
Whirling back like the descent from the Eye,
time and crackers light the sky,
on a Guy Fawkes night.
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 2:19 PM UTC
I taste your lips like the cotton candy
of a Newark sky, laced
with smog and dysentery. You lift
me up, roll me over and draw
me toward you. The gravitational pull--
'on my hair and tell me you love me'--
of your shoulders
and the intoxication of your
voice. Craning my neck
to hear--'you love me'--the grip
of your hands
on my throat.
The city is loud. Just
loud enough to gasp
through the static
of your car radio, pressing--'up against
me'--all the buttons.
Just change
the station. Where we rock
and undulate smoggy windows and
candied skies.
This last goodbye
tastes different from
my first time, clutching--
'my back and etching out lullabies'--
the shift stick. Put it in
neutral. We can just coast
from here and take it
easy--'she's so'--easy. Easy
falling into and letting fall and keeping--
'next to me forever'--from falling
over and over the bricks
of your building, shaking
the foundation, the exact
same way. You loved me
like a super dome and expanded
the words of your cityscape: a nice
addition, in need
of renovation. The cycle of
recycled buildings and veiled skies.
The monotonous gossip
of a Newark morning drawn out
past the night.
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 2:51 PM UTC
She cared for no one,
Stood tall and aloof like a single poppy,
Resisting the wind and rain
As she stood on the lawn of asphalt.
Around her she surveyed the weeds of the city,
The fake trees of the city,
The smoggy air of the concrete forest,
All choking and stifling her future.
Not for her this poisonous place
This ****** city,
This filthy forest of stone and metal.
Her kind need space and freedom.
For her kind are flowers that grow alone.
No one understands them.
They have no empathy.
They have no moving parts.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
this city never sleeps
this city never cries
secret's that it keeps
beyond smoggy skies
car alarms
gun shots
people screaming
parking lots
this city doesn't feel
this city's not afraid
these scars never heal
these sounds never fade
jackhammer
news stand
police sirens
news van
this city never sleeps
this city never cries
you can hear it on streets
you can see it in their eyes
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC