O City, Look the Eastward Way
O CITY, look the Eastward way!
Beyond thy roofs of shadowy red and grey
Floats like a lily on the airy stream,
Radiant and vast, a cloud,
Around whose billowy head
Splendour from out the glooming West is shed
As if it were not ever to take flight,—
And on its edge of gleam
In the clear blue of waning afternoon,
Faint as a spirit slipping from the shroud,
Faint, and yet gathering light,
The Moon.
O city, dream and pray!
This is thy evensong at close of day.
poem by Enid Derham
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Sonnet III
There was a youth around whose early way
White angels hung in converse and sweet choir,
Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, --
In cloud and far horizon to desire.
His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream
Born of clear showers and the mountain dew,
Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam
Forever pure against heaven's orient blue.
Within the city's shades he walked at last.
Faint and more faint in sad recessional
Down the dim corridors of Time outworn,
A chorus ebbed from that forsaken past,
A hymn of glories fled beyond recall
With the lost heights and splendor of life's morn.
poem by Alan Seeger
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Tale of Three Cities
New York blasted London blasted
Singapore -
Ripped off each other's metaphoric balls,
Crumbling walls.
Priapic city monoliths -
Blue-sky scraping bastards -
Shout about their height (but really length) .
V8 arseholes didn't care -
Pumping shit into the air,
So long as they were always there to
Fart aloud a smoggy cloud,
Laughing at the weak asthmatic,
Humoured that it seems traumatic.
Watch the greedy cities oozing
Chair-bound fat committees, though they
Look a bunch of titties as they
Waffle on about the pound.
Ever thought to look around and see
That they were dead?
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
city city city city city city
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city city city city city city
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Evensong
(Holy Trinity Church.)
THE hectic autumn's dilatory fire
Has turned this lime tree to a sevenfold brand,
Which, self consuming, lights the sunless land,
A death to which all poet souls aspire.
Above the graves, where all men's vain desire
Is hushed at last as by a Mother's hand,
And, Time confounded, Love's blank records stand,
The Evensong swells from the pulsing choir.
What incommunicable presence clings
To this grey church and willowy twilight stream?
Am I the dupe of some delusive dream?
Or, like faint fluid phosphorent rings
On refluent seas, doth Shakespeare's spirit gleam
Pervasive round these old familiar things?
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The City
Beyond the dusky corn-fields, toward the west,
Dotted with farms, beyond the shallow stream,
Through drifts of elm with quiet peep and gleam,
Curved white and slender as a lady's wrist,
Faint and far off out of the autumn mist,
Even as a pointed jewel softly set
In clouds of colour warmer, deeper yet,
Crimson and gold and rose and amethyst,
Toward dayset, where the journeying sun grown old
Hangs lowly westward darker now than gold,
With the soft sun-touch of the yellowing hours
Made lovelier, I see with dreaming eyes,
Even as a dream out of a dream, arise
The bell-tongued city with its glorious towers.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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Alma Mater
A haunted town thou art to me.
-- Andrew Lang
To-day in Florence all the air
Is soft with spring, with sunlight fair;
In the tall street gay folks are met;
Duomo and Tower gleam overhead,
Like jewels in the city set,
Fair-hued and many-faceted.
Against the old grey stones are piled
February violets, pale and sweet,
Whose scent of earth in woodland wild
Is wafted up and down the street.
The city's heart is glad ; my own
Sits lightly on its bosom's throne.
* * * * * * *
Why is it that I see to-day,
Imaged as clear as in a dream,
A little city far away,
A churlish sky, a sluggish stream,
Tall clust'ring trees and gardens fair,
Dark birds that circle in the air,
Grey towers and fanes ; on either hand,
Stretches of wind-swept meadow-land?
* * * * * * *
Oh, who can sound the human breast?
And this strange truth must be confessed;
That city do I love the best
Wherein my heart was heaviest!
Moon Bathers
Falls from her heaven the Moon, and stars sink
burning
Into the sea where blackness rims the sea,
Silently quenched. Faint light that the waves hold
Is only light remaining; yet still gleam
The sands where those now-sleeping young moon-bathers
Came dripping out of the sea and from their arms
Shook flakes of light, dancing on the foamy edge
Of quiet waves. They were all things of light
Tossed from the sea to dance under the Moon —
Her nuns, dancing within her dying round,
Clear limbs and breasts silvered with Moon and waves
And quick with windlike mood and body's joy,
Withdrawn from alien vows, by wave and wind
Lightly absolved and lightly all forgetting.
An hour ago they left. Remains the gleam
Of their late motion on the salt sea-meadow,
As loveliest hues linger when the sun's gone
And float in the heavens and die in reedy pools —
So slowly, who shall say when light is gone?
poem by John Freeman
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Sunday Afternoon in Chocolate City
It is Sunday afternoon in Chocolate City.
I only came to visit,
but I drank of a bittersweet brown elixir
and came down with an allergic reaction to leaving
My endorphins got all swollen
with the spiritual notion
of Black Love
It is Sunday afternoon in Chocolate City
My lover is on bended knee beside me
We had been fighting over nothing in particular,
Perhaps just because the thing between us is so strong
We barely have room for our own selves.
So we pray.
Pray for love
Pray for strength
Each for someone else
Then for one another
Together we Pray
for the anger to go away
Ask for understanding of a love so strong it chokes
and we can only breath together
we share the air between us
always, out of breath
always, needing more
Just like that,
reaching for a tissue,
an accidental brush
we are twisted limbs of amber and mahogany
backsliding into one another
sweaty in humidity
our wetness caramelizing on the floor
It is Sunday afternoon in Chocolate City
And we forgot to say “Amen”
by Ghetto Girl Blue
poem by Jessica Holter
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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city
The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,
Over the pale grey tumbled towers,—
And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.
Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.
The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,
Whirls over sleeping faces,
Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;
And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces . . .
And one from his high window, looking down,
Peers at the cloud-white town,
And thinks its island towers are like a dream . . .
It seems an enormous sleeper, within whose brain
Laborious shadows revolve and break and gleam.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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From This City I Want To Escape (Free Verse Quatern)
From this city I want to flee,
to find a place of some solace,
not again I want to return,
where city lights sometimes blind people.
I still think about how it was,
from this city I want to flee,
I cannot fit in this anthill,
a bridge to escape, I must find.
The city makes me uneasy,
I want to wander on the beach,
from this city I want to flee,
I want to vanish by bus or train.
Now I splash in a city stream,
at times are in the open air,
about freedom I can just dream,
from this city I want to flee.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Holidays
The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows;--
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;--a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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A City Laid Waste
Beyond the horizon
A wasteland I see
All grey and barren
A shadow of what it was once to be
What a strange sight i see
Beyond these dunes of grey
A girl ever so young in ragged clothes fade to grey
A whisper in the breeze was all that was left
Of a beggar's silent dream
Is that a city i see
Beyond the horizon
Or a shadow of what it was once to be
A minstrel's song lingers on
To tell of a city it had once been
Greed
Anger
Lust
The ruins of a city ruined by sins
Insidious as it is
It is all it can ever be
By the hands of man a city built
By the same hands the city lay waste
In all its glory
Amidst it dust is where it lies
poem by Iskandar Zulqarnain Muhamad
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The Waning Moon
I've watched too late; the morn is near;
One look at God's broad silent sky!
Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear,
How in your very strength ye die!
Even while your glow is on the cheek,
And scarce the high pursuit begun,
The heart grows faint, the hand grows weak,
The task of life is left undone.
See where upon the horizon's brim,
Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars;
The waning moon, all pale and dim,
Goes up amid the eternal stars.
Late, in a flood of tender light,
She floated through the ethereal blue,
A softer sun, that shone all night
Upon the gathering beads of dew.
And still thou wanest, pallid moon!
The encroaching shadow grows apace;
Heaven's everlasting watchers soon
Shall see thee blotted from thy place.
Oh, Night's dethroned and crownless queen!
Well may thy sad, expiring ray
Be shed on those whose eyes have seen
Hope's glorious visions fade away.
Shine thou for forms that once were bright,
For sages in the mind's eclipse,
For those whose words were spells of might,
But falter now on stammering lips!
In thy decaying beam there lies
Full many a grave on hill and plain,
Of those who closed their dying eyes
In grief that they had lived in vain.
Another night, and thou among
The spheres of heaven shalt cease to shine,
All rayless in the glittering throng
Whose lustre late was quenched in thine.
Yet soon a new and tender light
From out thy darkened orb shall beam,
And broaden till it shines all night
On glistening dew and glimmering stream.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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A Day-Dream's Reflection
Chequer'd with woven shadows as I lay
Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,
I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay
Most idly floating in the noontide beam.
Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway
Of ocean's giant pulsing, and the Dream,
Buoyed like the young moon on a level stream
Of greenish vapour at decline of day,
Swam airily, watching the distant flocks
Of sea-gulls, whilst a foot in careless sweep
Touched the clear-trembling cool with tiny shocks,
Faint-circling; till at last he dropt asleep,
Lull'd by the hush-song of the glittering deep,
Lap-lapping drowsily the heated rocks.
poem by William Allingham
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Tropical Sundown
Tremulously, tremulously,
green-blue, radiant light
filters off the lagoon.
Green-blue, radiant light
reflects the waning of the day
folding into night.
All the hours of the
day converge and dissolve in
green-blue radiant light.
poem by Sonny Rainshine
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Hi-Fi
Slipping through the city sliding train to train
Sulking on the subway music in our brain
She and me together in the city sounds
Me and mona lisa on the underground
Hi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
Hi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
Slipping through the city sliding brain to brain
Sulking on the subway listening to the train
She and me together speed through space and time
Grafitti in our eyes and music in our mind
Hi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
Hi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
Hi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
Hi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
Hi-fiHi-fiHi-fi in the white city yeah yeah
song performed by by Suede from Head Music
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Unseen City
Not far away does that bright city stand,
'Tis but the mist o'er its dividing stream,
That wraps the glory of its glitt'ring strand,
Its radiant skies, and mountains silvery gleam;
Oh, often in the blindness of our fate
We wander very near the city's gate.
We love that unseen city, and we yearn
Ever within our earthly homes to see
Its golden towers, that in the sunset burn,
Its white walls rising from the quiet sea;
Its mansions gleaming with immortal glow,
Filled with the treasure lost to us below.
Yes, dear ones that we loved and lost are there;
Bright in that fair clime beam those sweet eyes now;
Fanned by its soft breeze floats the shining hair,
Hair we have smoothed back from the gentlest brow;
Softest white hands we kissed and clasped in ours
Slipped from our grasp, lured by its glowing flowers.
Fairer it seems, its velvet walks were sweet,
Dearer its quiet streets, with gold paved o'er,
Since o'er them lightly fall the little feet--
The light feet bounding through our homes no more;
Oh, heart's dear music, tearfully missed,
That city's filled with melody like this.
It is not far away; down from its arches roll
Anthems too sacred for the outward ear,
Pouring their haunting sweetness on the soul;
Oh, how our waiting spirits thrill to hear,
In listening to the low bewildering strain,
Voices they said we should not hear again.
Oh, dear to us that city. He is there,
He whom unseen we love; no need of light;
His tender eyes illume the crystal air
Where His beloved walk in vesture white,
What though on earth they wandered, poor, distressed,
And saw through tears His glory, now they rest.
Oh, that fair city, shining o'er the tide,
Thither we journey through the storm and night;
But soon shall we adown its still bay glide,
Soon will the city's gate gleam on our sight,
There with our own forever shall we be,
In that fair city rising from the sea.
poem by Marietta Holley
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Sonnet VI
Give me the treble of thy horns and hoofs,
The ponderous undertones of 'bus and tram,
A garret and a glimpse across the roofs
Of clouds blown eastward over Notre Dame,
The glad-eyed streets and radiant gatherings
Where I drank deep the bliss of being young,
The strife and sweet potential flux of things
I sought Youth's dream of happiness among!
It walks here aureoled with the city-light,
Forever through the myriad-featured mass
Flaunting not far its fugitive embrace, --
Heard sometimes in a song across the night,
Caught in a perfume from the crowds that pass,
And when love yields to love seen face to face.
poem by Alan Seeger
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Landscape
In order to write my chaste verses I’ll lie
like an astrologer near to the sky
and, by the bell-towers, listen in dream
to their solemn hymns on the air-stream.
Hands on chin, from my attic’s height
I’ll see the workshops of song and light,
the gutters, the belfries those masts of the city,
the vast skies that yield dreams of eternity
It is sweet to see stars being born in the blue,
through the mists, the lamps at the windows, too,
the rivers of smoke climbing the firmament,
and the moon pouring out her pale enchantment.
I’ll see the springs, summers, autumns’ glow,
and when winter brings the monotonous snow
I’ll close all my doors and shutters tight
and build palaces of faery in the night.
Then I’ll dream of blue-wet horizons,
weeping fountains of alabaster, gardens,
kisses, birdsong at morning or twilight,
all in the Idyll that is most childlike.
The mob that are beating in vain on the glass,
won’t make me raise my head as they pass.
Since I’ll be plunged deep in the thrill
of evoking the springtime through my own will,
raising the sun out of my own heart,
making sweet air from my burning thought.
poem by Charles Baudelaire
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City Boy Blues
Fireflies in dogfights
Runnin hot in the heat
Street noise, another bribe
Things too hard to believe--so head out
My hearts in the country
My feets in the city with you
All my friends are eatin sushi
Talkin bad about you know who-who-who
My tongues talkin riddles
But I just cant seem to find a clue
So I take a swig of whiskey
And jump into the saddle with you-you-you
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
Cats in the alley
Rats in my snakeskin boots
All my neighbors think Im crazy
And my girl thinks Im losin my cool-cool-cool
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
I got the city boy blues
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
Dont look to jesus to change your seasons
Its the american dream
Souls of gypsies, road of stone
Cant seem to find no peace--so head out
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
I got the blues, I got the blues, got the city boy blues
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
And I just cant seem to break the shackles of the city boy blues
I got the blues, I got the blues,
I got the blues, I got the blues
I got the blues, I got the blues,
I got the blues, I got the blues
song performed by by Motley Crue
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mumbai
They call it a city that never sleeps,
Dreams at large; everything in heaps
Buzzing all the time, different people different cons,
It got its roses and it got its thorns.
City of murmuring traffic and twinkling cars
The multi-millionaires, the movie stars.
We’ve got it all;
The vada-pav and the dance bars,
Crowded local trains, almost on time,
Spirit of its passengers always sublime
City where honesty is rewarded,
But bravery is crime.
Success and failure are in twilight,
City where changes happen overnight
You might be swept if caught off sight,
Got lucky, then you be on a flight
Multi-lingual, multi-religious,
City of unusual weather,
I wouldn’t be wrong; if I say,
It’s a city where country comes together,
Every city has its ups and downs and she is no different.
She gives me an identity and makes me proud.
City where I was born and city where I want to die,
My city! My Mumbai
poem by Fahim Sayed
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