En.Citatepedia^®.ro

The City Planners

Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
than the rational whine of a power mower
cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass.

But though the driveways neatly
sidestep hysteria
by being even, the roofs all display
the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,
certain things:
the smell of spilled oil a faint
sickness lingering in the garages,
a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,
a plastic hose poised in a vicious
coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows

give momentary access to
the landscape behind or under
the future cracks in the plaster

when the houses, capsized, will slide
obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers
that right now nobody notices.

That is where the City Planners
with the insane faces of political conspirators
are scattered over unsurveyed
territories, concealed from each other,
each in his own private blizzard;

guessing directions, they sketch
transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
on a wall in the white vanishing air

tracing the panic of suburb
order in a bland madness of snows

poem by Margaret Atwood
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Beneath the plaster

Beneath the plaster
that covers
the cracks in the walls
there is a sickness.

Another side to laughter,
fancy dresses,
and dinner suits.

Superficially
there is order,
grandeur,
but beneath,
deceit and lies.

The priest who
likes small boys,

The business man
who makes his wealth
from whore houses.

The banker
who does dirty deals,
makes money from
the weaker willed.

The leaches,
fancy ladies
plundering a living
from rich husbands
and sugar daddies.

Beneath the plaster
that covers
the cracks in the walls
there is a sickness.

poem by Ruth Walters
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Here In Bed

Here in bed behind a brick wall
I can make order and meaning,
but how do I begin? How do I
emerge without panic
to the sounds and mass
of people in the street?

Are they human who stare
as I pass by, as if sizing me up
for a mugging or a filthy proposition,
and am I human to have to be
frightened and on guard?

It's people I'm afraid of, afraid
of my own kind, knowing their angers
and schemes and violent needs, knowing
through knowledge of myself
that I have learned to resist,
but when I can't I have seen
the havoc I have made.

It's this, knowing their desperate motives,
as I have known mine, I'm afraid of
in them. I hide upon a bed
behind a brick wall and listen
to engines roaring up and down
the street and to voices shouting
to one another and find no meaning
or order in them, as there is none
in me when I am free of self-restraint.

The bed is my victory over fear.
The bed returns me to my self
as I was young and dreaming
of the beauty of the trees
and faces of people.

poem by David Ignatow
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Gloss Paint

Beneath the gloss paint
that covers
the cracks in the walls
there is a sickness.

Another side to laughter,
fancy dresses,
and dinner suits
and gaiety.

Superficially there is order,
manners, grandeur
but underneath,
deceit and lies.

The priest who likes small boys,
the business man
who made his wealth
from whore houses.

The banker
who did dirty deals,
made money from
the weaker willed.

The leaches; fancy ladies
plundering their living
from rich husbands
and sugar daddies.

Beneath the gloss paint
that covers
the cracks in the walls
there is a sickness.

poem by Ruth Walters
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The Ancestral Dwelling

Dear to my heart are the ancestral dwellings of America,
Dearer than if they were haunted by ghosts of royal splendour;
These are the homes that were built by the brave beginners of a nation,
They are simple enough to be great, and full of a friendly dignity.

I love the old white farmhouses nestled in New England valleys,
Ample and long and low, with elm-trees feathering over them:
Borders of box in the yard, and lilacs, and old-fashioned Howers,
A fan-light above the door, and little square panes in the windows,
The wood-shed piled with maple and birch and hickory ready for winter,
The gambrel-roof with its garret crowded with household relics, --
All the tokens of prudent thrift and the spirit of self-reliance.

I love the look of the shingled houses that front the ocean;
Their backs are bowed, and their lichened sides are weather-beaten;
Soft in their colour as grey pearls, they are full of patience and courage.
They seem to grow out of the rocks, there is something indomitable about them:
Facing the briny wind in a lonely land they stand undaunted,
While the thin blue line of smoke from the square-built chimney rises,
Telling of shelter for man, with room for a hearth and a cradle.

I love the stately southern mansions with their tall white columns,
They look through avenues of trees, over fields where the cotton is growing;
I can see the flutter of white frocks along their shady porches,
Music and laughter float from the windows, the yards are full of hounds and horses.
They have all ridden away, yet the houses have not forgotten,
They are proud of their name and place, and their doors are always open,
For the thing they remember best is the pride of their ancient hospitality.

In the towns I love the discreet and tranquil Quaker dwellings,
With their demure brick faces and immaculate white-stone doorsteps;
And the gabled houses of the Dutch, with their high stoops and iron railings,
(I can see their little brass knobs shining in the morning sunlight);
And the solid houses of the descendants of the Puritans,
Fronting the street with their narrow doors and dormer-windows;
And the triple-galleried, many-pillared mansions of Charleston,
Standing sideways in their gardens full of roses and magnolias.

Yes, they are all dear to my heart, and in my eyes they are beautiful;
For under their roofs were nourished the thoughts that have made the nation;
The glory and strength of America came from her ancestral dwellings.

poem by Henry Van Dyke
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The Tulip Bed

The May sun--whom
all things imitate--
that glues small leaves to
the wooden trees
shone from the sky
through bluegauze clouds
upon the ground.
Under the leafy trees
where the suburban streets
lay crossed,
with houses on each corner,
tangled shadows had begun
to join
the roadway and the lawns.
With excellent precision
the tulip bed
inside the iron fence
upreared its gaudy
yellow, white and red,
rimmed round with grass,
reposedly.

poem by William Carlos Williams
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A Prediction....

as usual we know about it as
hills know its trees
as grass knows its hoppers
and soil

but we don't talk about it
we dislike storms
it is horrible to see uprooted trees
and blown away houses

we leave things as they are
there is no ripeness yet
but the way you withhold love
and hide second thoughts
very give the signal of the coming days

a desert shall produce its own sandstorm
you prepare the door
i too, keep the windows.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Night In The City

Standin at the airport lookin down the strip,
She was cryin her eyes, she was bitin her lip.
Seven-four-seven just left from gate eleven
And theres no turnin round cos its just leavin the ground
And gettin higher higher.
Standin at the dock-side lookin out to sea
When I saw her but she did not see me.
There she stood with no hope because shed missed the boat
And as her dreams sailed away she headed back for the day,
Back to the city city.
Night in the city, o-o-oh,
Madness at mid-mid-mid-midnight,
Night in the city drivin you insane.
In the city city
Night in the city, o-o-oh,
Madness at mid-mid-mid-midnight,
Night in the city drivin you insane.
I was runnin kinda lonely at the city place.
I waited for an hour, I never saw her face.
Crazy ladies that wait and slide around like a snake.
I just cant take anymore, Im going in through the door
Into the city city.
Ill get you, yes, Im gonna get you,
Ill get you, yes, Im gonna get you,
Ill get you, yes, Im gonna get you,
Ill get you, yes, Im gonna get you,
Ill get you, yes, Im gonna get you,
Ill get you, yes, Im gonna get you,
Drivin you insane.
Night in the city, o-o-oh,
Madness at mid-mid-mid-midnight,
Night in the city drivin you insane,
Drivin you insane,
Drivin you insane.

song performed by by Electric Light Orchestra
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Future

Give me back my broken night
My secret room, my secret life
Its lonely here
Theres no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
Thats an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree thats left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
Give back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st. paul
Ive seen the future, brother
It is murder
Chorus
Things are going to slide in all directions
Wont be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned
The order of the soul
When they said repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said repent
I wonder what they meant
You dont know me from the wind
You never will, you never did
Im the little jew
Who wrote the bible
Ive seen nations rise and fall
Ive heard their stories, heard them all
But loves the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
To say it clear, to say it cold
Its over, it aint going
Any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
You feel the devils riding crop
Get ready for the future
It is murder
Chorus
Therell be the breaking of the ancient
Western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
Therell be phantoms
Therell be fires in the road
And the white man dancing
Youll see the woman
Hanging upside down
Her features covered by her fallen gown
And all the lousy little poets
Coming round
Trying to sound like charlie manson
Give me back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st. paul
Give me christ
Or give me hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We dont like children anyhow
Ive seen the future, baby
It is murder
Chorus

song performed by by Leonard Cohen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Twilight on Sixth Avenue at Ninth Street

Over the tops of the houses
Twilight and sunset meet.
The green, diaphanous dusk
Sinks to the eager street.

Astray in the tangle of roofs
Wanders a wind of June.
The dial shines in the clock-tower
Like the face of a strange-scrawled moon.

The narrowing lines of the houses
Palely begin to gleam,
And the hurrying crowds fade softly
Like an army in a dream.

Above the vanishing faces
A phantom train flares on
With a voice that shakes the shadows, --
Diminishes, and is gone.

And I walk with the journeying throng
In such a solitude
As where a lonely ocean
Washes a lonely wood.

poem by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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I Walk A Nameless River

I walk a nameless river
One which collects water from the houses,
The streets and such,
A river of rain that carry small sticks,
Cigarettes butts and, bits of paper
A shadow river that moves pap like rocks
A river trapped in the street cars’ tracks
A river rushing past ants and praying mantises
Against butterflies and worms that comes up and leave
Body tracks in the mud.
A river fed by puddles and cracks; indents in the sidewalks
By downward slanted driveways and situated front yards
By small streams on window glass and streams down sycamore trucks,
Maple, oak and such.
A cleaning river of gutterized rain,
A leaf drooping rain of green things,
River of no name
Too thin to carry twigs
Easily distracted by my foot
Easily stagnated into a nameless pond
When the sky has dried out.
I walk a one street river
A shallow river of clinched fists
A narrow river of butterflies in the nameless sky
A concrete river of feet saturated against the maple rocks
A river of bodies coming up leaving a river of cracks
A river of cigarettes of worms of sycamore trunks, oak
Marble and such.
A thin river of destruction, of gutters and traped tracks
Of sticks collected among themselves like dead praying mantises
In the rush of houses and driveways stacked in the water
Of a small rainy sky.

poem by David E. Patton
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Scenic Route

For Lucy, who called them "ghost houses."

Someone was always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses wait like old wives
along this road; they are everywhere,
abandoned, leaning, turning gray.

Someone always traded
the lonely beauty
of hemlock and stony lakeshore
for survival, packed up his life
and drove off to the city.
In the yards the apple trees
keep hanging on, but the fruit
grows smaller year by year.

When we come this way again
the trees will have gone wild,
the houses collapsed, not even worth
the human act of breaking in.
Fields will have taken over.

What we will recognize
is the wind, the same fierce wind,
which has no history.

poem by Lisel Mueller
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Without You

Without you every morning would feel like going back to work after a holiday,
Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road,
Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews,
Without you I'd probably feel happy and have more money and time and nothing to do with it,
Without you I'd have to leave my stillborn poems on other people's doorsteps, wrapped in brown paper,
Without you there'd never be sauce to put on sausage butties,
Without you plastic flowers in shop windows would just be plastic flowers in shop windows,
Without you I'd spend my summers picking morosley over the remains of train crashes,
Without you white birds would wrench themselves free from my paintings and fly off dripping blood into the night,
Without you green apples wouldn't taste greener,
Without you Mothers wouldn't let their children play out after tea,
Without you every musician in the world would forget how to play the blues,
Without you Public Houses would be public again,
Without you the Sunday Times colour suppliment would come out in black-and-white,
Without you indifferent colonels would shrug their shoulders and press the button,
Without you they's stop changing the flowers in Piccadilly Gardens,
Without you Clark Kent would forget how to become Superman,
Without you Sunshine Breakfast would only consist of Cornflakes,
Without you there'd be no colour in Magic colouring books,
Without you Mahler's 8th would only be performed by street musicians in derelict houses,
Without you they'd forget to put the salt in every packet of crisps,
Without you it would be an offence punishable by a fine of up to £200 or two months' imprisonment to be found in possession of curry powder,
Without you riot police are massing in quiet sidestreets,
Without you all streets would be one-way the other way,
Without you there'd be no one to kiss goodnight when we quarrel,
Without you the first martian to land would turn round and go away again,
Without you they'd forget to change the weather,
Without you blind men would sell unlucky heather,
Without you there would be
no landscapes/no stations/no houses
no chipshops/no quiet villages/no seagulls
on beaches/no hopscotch on pavements/no night/no morning/
there'd be no city no country
Without you.

poem by Adrian Henri
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At The Surface Of These All.....

it is nice at the top
there is more fun in there
at the surface one sees
sun and landscapes of
plains and trees and houses and
trains and
roads,

at night, it is a city of
glittering diamonds
and you are on top of this
situation

it is nice swimming at the surface
seeing the rest enjoying their splash of
days

but it gets lonely
sometimes, at first, then most of the times
the nights are like clinging hands
pulling you down to
some depths of your
kept oceans

showing you the dark side
of your existence
the most silent part of it
this one
tells you the truth
and speaks straight to you
without
the flowers of
euphemistic living

you are plunged into a vast silence of the
deepest part in you
and you take all the risk
that somehow because of too much pressure
you break down into
pieces of
broken stars

porcelain, glass, cracking
and this inability to join the pieces together
makes you
incomplete again into the emptiness of your
being

what i hear is sighs in the depths like
some kind of
whales communicating that there is something greater
down there

rather than the top the surface which may offer you
a loud life laughing
but then deep inside their is this wailing and mourning
as though someone so well loved
has just passed away.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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You Grew A Memory

Somewhere along the road on which we were walking,
The little path we used to follow religiously every morning,
The street with the fancy iron bars and birch trees and neatly kept houses,
Someone had planted a memory.

The memory lay concealed within a tiny cardboard box,
Lying there contentedly, wrapped in several layers of tissue paper,
The words written lovingly in shiny blue ink,
Inscripted onto the parchment until the rain destroyed the box
And washed the memory away.

poem by Twilight Whispers
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The Holocaust Song (August 6th, '45.)

8-15 Tuesday morning
a burning flash dissolved the skies,
death reigned without warning...
August 6th, '45.

In a lightning crash of frozen moment,
thousands were incinerated and scourged alive;
firewinds flayed through paper houses...
August 6th, '45.

People cauterized to the melting earth,
their scalding blood, their flesh that fried:
they were the lucky ones...
August 6th, '45.

Who put the horror in Hiroshima?
Who wrote shock on the human eye?
Who etched terror onto mankind's future
that August 6th, '45?

Across the warscape of that flattened city
women stumbled too numb to cry,
their skin pulped with boiling blisters...
August 6th, '45.

Lines of shuffling, staring figures
too stunned and sick to wonder why,
their faces shocked but past all panic...
August 6th, '45.

People peeled like red bananas,
those people lived but quickly died;
skin that hung like paper streamers...
August 6th, '45.

Who put the horror in Hiroshima?
Who permitted genocide?
Who sanctioned that mad disaster
on August 6th, '45.

Lurching beings like lifeless corpses
silhouette an ashen sky;
they wandered, abject, without purpose...
August 6th, '45.

Whose pride murdered Nagasaki?
Whose decision prepared the lies?
Were they doomed or just unlucky
that August day, '45?

Escape's denied to all survivors,
cancers haunt them till the day they die.
And their heirs will curse the craven authors
of August 6th, '45.

poem by David SmithWhite
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Brick Windows

Been bangin my head against the window
Just trying to see the world outside
Some people say it doesnt matter
Some people take you for a ride
I am covered in blood and broken glass
It seems the window likes to fight
Some people say the worlds on fire
Some people say the worlds on ice
Some people say the worlds on ice
? all alone in a relation
Brick windows
I am sticking my face right through the glass
Just trying to see if the worlds alive
Some people will say the windows broken
Some people will say its all right
Some people will say its all right
Keep bangin my head against the wall oh
Just trying to keep the past alive
Some people who make the windows shatter
Some people who make it airtight
Some people who make it airtight
? all alone in a relation
? all alone in a relation
Brick windows
Brick windows

song performed by by Ministry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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City Of Worcester

Worcester, the city of noise,
Walking along these city streets,
Seeing people busy,
pacing,
Cracked city walks,
Aged city houses,
Beautiful city air, '
Never seems to be a minute to spare,
As cars stream along,
Cops and fire trucks pass down my street.
Loud children playing in the streets.

As I walk down the street of mine,
I hear parents yelling at their children.
Dogs barking as you walk by,
Houses that are old and crusty,
Men and women fighting.
This right here is the city I was born in.
The City Of Worcester!

poem by Cassandra Prew
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White Houses

Crashed on the floor when i moved in
This little bungalow with some strange new friends
Stayed up too late, and I'm too thin
We promise each other it's till the end
Now we're spinning empty bottles, it's the fives of us
With pretty-eyed boys girls die to trust
I can't resist the day oh no i can't resist the day
And Jenny screams out and it's no pose
'Cause when she dances she goes and goes
Beer through the nose on an inside joke
And I'm so excited I haven't spoken
And she's so pretty and she's so sure
Maybe I'm more clever than a girl like her
The summer's all in bloom
The summer's ending soon
It's all right
And it's nice not to be so alone
But I hold on to secrets in white houses
Maybe I'm a little bit over my head
I come undone at the things he said
He's so funny in his bright red shirt
we were all in love and we all got hurt
I sneak into his car's cracked leather seat
The smell of gasoline in the summer heat
Boy we're going way too fast
It's all too sweet to last...
It's alright and i put myself in his hands
but i hold on to secrets in White Houses
Love or something ignites in my veins
and i pray it never fades in white houses
My first time
Hard to explain
Rush of blood, oh
And a little bit of pain
On a cloudy day
It's more common than you think
He's my first mistake
Maybe you were all faster than me
We gave each other up so easily
These silly little wounds will never mend
I feel so far from where I've been
So I go and I will not be back here again
I'm gone as the day is fading on white houses
I lie, put my injuries all in the dust
In my heart is the 5 of us in white houses
And you, maybe you'll remember me
What I gave is yours to keep
In white houses
In white houses
In white houses.

song performed by by Vanessa Carlton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An Abstract painting

My eyes fall on an abstract painting
of which my girlfriend,
wants to paint a series
that may hang in board halls
and offices.

There’s something hot and alive
in the background
that changes from golden yellow,
to flame orange
and flows into black red
and a green line
runs from the foreground
into the horizon.

With strong straight lines wood,
and sink plate shacks appear
with horizontal and vertical lines
and it looks like a squatter camp,
or the houses of a headman
in the country.

To me it looks like drums and large tin cans
that lies around in the front
and a big old TV set
with sitting places round it
and at the back,
there are two wooden pens
to keep in sheep and goats.

Maybe there’s red sand
on the one side
and yellow and green grass
for grazing on the other side,
but honestly I do not want to stay
in such a place.

[Reference: Abstract painting by Mandi. Look at the painting on my mabooki webpage: http: //www.mabooki.com/poems/display/1416_An_Abstract_ painting.htm]

poem by Gert Strydom
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Discharged

Carry me out
Into the wind and the sunshine,
Into the beautiful world.

O, the wonder, the spell of the streets!
The stature and strength of the horses,
The rustle and echo of footfalls,
The flat roar and rattle of wheels!
A swift tram floats huge on us . . .
It's a dream?
The smell of the mud in my nostrils
Blows brave-like a breath of the sea!

As of old,
Ambulant, undulant drapery,
Vaguery and strangely provocative,
Fluttersd and beckons. O, yonder -
Is it?-the gleam of a stocking!
Sudden, a spire
Wedged in the mist! O, the houses,
The long lines of lofty, grey houses,
Cross-hatched with shadow and light!
These are the streets . . .
Each is an avenue leading
Whither I will!

Free . . . !
Dizzy, hysterical, faint,
I sit, and the carriage rolls on with me
Into the wonderful world.

poem by William Ernest Henley
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