Urban Effusion
the greys of the city
lingered and deepened
in its aged structures
a mature effusion
beneath wearing rain
and wind and sun
an elemental artistic
achievement visualising
the demise of urban
reality
here and there
within the inner city
pockets of concrete
and synthetic blossoms
brightened the shadows
of ancient abodes
reminiscent of the
floriferous space
of the suburban
environment...
beneath
a puniceous sky
the new and the old
stood solitary
poem by Liam ó Comáin
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Related quotes
I wanted to improve the suburban office building; to create a great urban space in a suburban environment with all that implies about interaction, collaboration and creativity.
quote by Helmut Jahn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Big City Type
I woke up in a big city apartment
Rode to a big city job
On a big city subway
With hip, big city people
Worked at a big city job
In a big city skyscraper
Stood in a big city line
For lunch, heard big city jazz
On a big city radio station
It was like a big city scene
In a big budget movie
When I realized I had become
The big city type
I always wanted to be
Yet I was still me
poem by Adam Artois
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In View of the Biblical Zoo
Over the tree line towards the valleys end
Abed Abed-Rabbo raises a hand
The farm he surveys, his father's before him
Has been past down for generations in keeping with custom
In view of the Biblical Zoo
A farm of olives trees is a refreshing contrast
Against an imposing backdropp of urban concrete
And an ever expanding city complex
But because of the need for living space
This established ecosystem is being replaced
And Abed Abed-Rabbo is now forced to abdicate
His precious Olive farm, with its one room sleeping cave
Against urban sprawl and concrete walls
Alone one man can not possibly stand
And any amount of compensation cannot match
The resulting environmental impact
Even if it appears we live comfortably
In reality it is, pseudo-security
Without air or water quality
In an ever expanding city
© Calac
Abed Abed-Rabbo – A Palestinian farmer,48, inherited his farm full of olive trees overlooking the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo from his father and his grandfather.
The property in the village of Wallajeh, is situated on the southern edge of Jerusalem.
A decision to annex his farm full of olive trees into the city has been proposed due to the demand for apartment living space
poem by Chris Lane
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Everyday
Part I
sands, sands, sands
and the dunes
the waves and wind
PartII
the city, city, city
steel and brick
and slabs of concrete
Part III
the dreams, dreams, dreams
that I had when
I was young
Part IV
reality, reality, reality
what I grew up
to be everyday
poem by Midnights Voice
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Job Proposal
The community has no immunity from the systematic demise
Of inner city enterprise
This demise creates economic development for administrations
In the midst of inner city death cries
Poverty, an opportunity for the business community to procure
Appropriations for the revitalization of bureaucratic relations
Poverty works, it is the hidden agenda that doth lurk
Anti-poverty programs comprehensive and coordinated
Jobs for social workers, counselors and bureaucrats created
While communities, neighborhoods and ghettos waited and waited
Urban Renewal 1949, Community Action Program 1964
Model Cities 1966, Community Development Block Grants 1974
Urban Development Action Grants 1977, Enterprise Zones 1980,
Empowerment Zones 1993
The community has no immunity from the systematice demise
Of inner city enterprise
Poverty and crime are permitted to murder the inner city
Without remorse, without mercy, without justice, without pity
The need for the slums sanctions traditional deterioration of
Social humanity
Representative of, representative of bureaucratic insanity
The community has no immunity from systematic demise
Of inner city enterprise
poem by Josephine DixonBanks
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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
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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In Memory of the Christchurch Earthquake NZ
United they stood on their Memorial Day,
Christchurch will rise up their Motto they say,
Our city shook beneath the Earths crust,
Bricks and Mortar have crumbled to dust,
Loved one's gone never to return,
Memories of horror like embers they burn,
Their city is weeping the ground is seeping,
Bodies lay beneath forever safekeeping,
Flashbacks haunt the one's left behind,
How could Mother Earth have been so unkind,
Historic Buildings crumbled to the power,
The City has lost the Cathedral Bell tower,
There prayers of mercy their congregation strong,
Church doors closed the organs sound is longed,
Our Garden City will bloom coming spring,
A Nation rejoicing a New City to begin,
People have rallied from places afar,
A gift of kindness how gracious we Kiwi's all are.
poem by Beverley Warren
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A Solitary Poet
A lone flower peaks
Out over the city
From a tenement roof.
She is speechless
In her small pot
In the immense void
Of cold concrete and steel.
A solitary poet
Brought her there
To gaze upon
As he scribbles
Mad, translucent verse
Disconnected from sterile reality,
Preserving ancient poetic breath
And breeze of idyllic
Romantic past.
poem by Uriah Hamilton
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This concrete city
infects the sky...turning it
into concrete too.
Concrete sun and concrete rain.
Concrete humans... cry...real tears
tanka by Dónall Dempsey
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My City
I journeyed from my city
across the land of dreams
and found the destiny of those
who wandered away from their cities
my country is not Karl Marx
it is not the ancient past of politics
drowned in a sea of oblivion
staring in the light of shadows
England is my home, the past is my city
England will come as men of desperate needs
come to the rich, the land is my psyche
buildings are my nerves
rain is my blood
my city is standing before me
poem by Bassel Almasalmeh
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Singapore - The City I Dream To Visit
One of my cherished wishes is to visit the 'Lion City' of Singapore
It is a city where I have always dreamt to go for a tour.
A city so small in size but so huge in terms of achievement
And holds such a prominent place in the entire Asian continent.
It is a city that represents life, warmth and fun
And has established itself as a unique place under the Sun.
I always dream that someday I will visit this spectacular city
Though I do not know when I will get that golden opportunity.
Without individuals feeling safe and having an environment of safety, they then have reluctance of taking part in the city of being active. They wind up wanting to leave the city. That's more detrimental.
quote by Dick Powell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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City Of Sin
City of sin
When will thou go clean
A foolish society
In an archaic city
Full of vanity
A city without conscience
Full of violence
Greediness and selfishness
Why should there be a city
Without justice and fairness
The rich over the poor
Blood do they devour
Life becomes sore
Her daughters turn hoer
How can there exist
Such a city
If goodness is banish
Then we are all finish
Why won't they perish
Why must i cherish
Such an evil city
poem by Matt Ancient
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The Eternal Kansas City
Chorus (choir singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city)?
(van singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Train down to st. louis
Get me there alright
Over to the city there, you know that one
Where the farmers daughter digs the farmers son
Dig your charlie parker
Basie and young
Witherspoon and jay mcshann
They will come
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Lady liberty in waiting
You know she lights the way
Her name is billie, shes a holiday
And the city is eternal -- hey, cant you see?
Its inside of you and its inside of me
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city ?
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
Wild thing
You know the way to kansas city (choir only)
Thank you man (van)
You know the way to kansas city
Sing it (van)
You know the way to kansas city (van and choir)
Hit it (van)
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
Baby cant you sing it one time (van)
(choir)
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
You know the way to kansas city
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Leah
They defied the gods and earned their wrath.
Waters washed over their land
sinking it miles beneath the sea
to languish for centuries in myth and mystery.
Then emerged a mysterious woman
I found floundering near the shore.
She said her name was Leah
and claimed she was from a land
that sunk centuries ago
by the gods deep beneath the sea.
As the days progressed from the time,
I found her
this is the story she related to me.
My city is one of many
and my people are very old.
We learnt a long time ago
the key to immortality.
Ours is but a simple life
farming fish and seaweed
for our daily feed.
Over the centuries we learnt the secrets
all here seek to learn,
how to breath underwater
and above on this land.
It was while I was exploring
you found me near the shore.
We go out quite often
just to explore this world
to see if you have learnt
from the mistakes we made
when we defied the gods.
Sadly, from what we have seen
you make more than we,
but I fear that unlike us
you will never sink beneath the sea.
Instead, your cities will crumble
and you will be buried
beneath your city’s waste
when the buildings crumble to the ground
She then rose up and moved
away from my house back to the sea,
as I called out her name Leah
a wind came up from nowhere
carrying her name away from me.
Leah vanished back into the sea
leaving me with only mystery.
Was she from the fabled Atlantis?
Was she as old as she had implied.
What about the prediction for us,
did I dream it all
or was it an alternate reality?
These questions I cannot answer,
but each night I wander
alone along the beach
and shout her name Leah
only to have the wind
carry it away from me
to somewhere far out to sea.
7 September 2011
poem by David Harris
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Dirt
Washed up on shore...
Washed up on shore...
Id like to live beneath the dirt
A tiny space to move and breathe is all that I would ever need
I want to live beneath the dirt
Where Id be free from push and shove like all those swarming up above
Beneath your heals Ill spend my time
Shout your name into the wind
Ill wiggle in the earth and dew
Shout your name into the wind
And somtimes I will think of you
Shout your name into the wind
And if you ever think of me
Kneel down and kiss the earth
And show me what this thought is worth
Ill never hear your voice again
Shout your name into the wind...
Shout your name into the wind...
Shout your name into the wind...
Shout your name into the wind...
Shout your name into the wind...
Shout yout name into the wind...
Shout your name into the wind...
Shout your name into the wind...
song performed by by Phish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The City Vs. The Country
In the city where the colours run dry,
Or in the country where the farmers grow rye.
In the city where there are fees,
Or in the country where beauty is free.
In the city where there are loud crowds,
Or in the country where you can watch clouds.
In the city where you camp out in your room,
Or in the country where you have fun dancing with a broom.
In the city where there are polluting cars,
Or in the county where you can see stars.
In the city where you seal the deal,
Or in the country where you can heal.
In the city where you say later,
Or in the country where you can see the water.
In the city where space is tight,
Or in the country where you hold their hand in the moonlight.
Written by Haley McRae,14.
poem by Haley McRae
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Weep In a Flowerless Place
I walk on the rubble
Hard city concrete
Amid spaced-apart
Solitary trees
In the sad, grey afternoon
Autumn rain,
My shoes are weary and worn
Going down the ancient avenues
Where I paced myself
Broken-hearted a hundred times before.
I’m hungry for love and hope,
But live on the pointless stale bread
Of defeated, lingering memories
And impossible dreams that resurface
With cackling voices of mockery.
If my special friend could find me today,
She would weep in a flowerless place
For what has become of me.
poem by Uriah Hamilton
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November, Early Morning
open sky washed clean by a night of rain
sharp breath of autumn covering everything
London almost pleasant in the 6 a.m. dawn light
leaf mould underfoot and the twinklings of birdsong
I consider my place in it all
great web of man machine trees birds roads
great urban tangle that holds us all
beneath feet spaghetti of cables
above head streaks of vapour trails
there is not a corner of this city that is not full
1.11.06.
poem by Jim McDonald
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To Search The Night
the lie hidden inside the stone,
buried in the field;
slept waiting for nuclear rain,
and the lamp that portayed the sun...
then with a burst of reptile genius,
grew and blossomed into a city,
heavy with the musk of empty bodies...
and they prayed beneath neon lights,
dancing to synthetic music.
as she devoured her young,
on the day after progress!
while gods wore masks and demons shuddered,
to the sound of wheels biting pavement.
the gravemakers wore plastic gloves,
their eyes red with smoke.
and judges stood in bank lines,
while convicts gave blood.
Jesus stopped, and vomited,
on the highway to Gethsemene!
and crosses wept for meaning,
leaving the dogs to search the night...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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