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I have lanced many boils, but none pained like my own.

Indian proverbs
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Pipe Dreams

i read it all
every word
and i still don't understand a thing
what had you heard
what had you heard
was it love
was it take another walk in the dark
you'll never learn
i'd pray to god if there was heaven
but heaven seems so very far from here
and it all boils down to the same thing
just a yin and a yang or a couple of pipe dreams
and it all boils down to the same old pain
whether you win or you lose isn't gonna change a single thing
i stood in line and a thought crossed my mind
i had been dreaming but i didn't mind
i signed the line and the woman looked right through me
she didn't smile
i'd pray to god if there was heaven
but heaven seems so very far from here
and it all boils down to the same old thing
just a yin and a yang or a couple of pipe dreams
and it all boils down to the same old pain
whether you win or you lose isn't gonna change a single thing
i'd pray to god if there was heaven
but heaven seems so very far from here
and it all boils down to the same old thing
just a yin and a yang or a couple of pipe dreams
and it all boils down to the same old pain
whether you win or you lose isn't gonna change a single thing
and it all boils down to the same old fear
just a link in a chain
just a puppet on a string
and it all boils down to the same old pain
whether you win or lose
whether you win or lose
whether you win or lose
whether you win or lose

song performed by Travis from The Invisible Band
Added by Lucian Velea
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Beauty In You Boils Like Wine Yet You Are So Divine

You are eternal so is love
Everything is for change but not beauty of my love..
Beauty in you is admired by all
Here i'm as adorable not for all..
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine

Beauty is you that's true
Honey.. it's true mirror never lies you..
I never lie but can lie for you and
For your happiness can die for you..
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine

Beauty is sacred so are you
Beauty is priceless so in you
You are precious but not for the world
Can bet anything to make you my world
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine

Beautiful is you not my life
Your beauty is immortal not my eyes
Oh Mine...
Your beauty is the way to heaven
Show me way to your heart which is next to seven..
Take me the way i am and
make me the way you want..
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine

You are my love worth to die for
You are my freedom worth to fight for..
I made my guts to compromise
Beauty in you is worth a sacrifice..
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine

My words can sail but are not for sale
Can sacrifice in love to make you my fairy tale..
This song of mine is only for you my sunshine
I can sing this song specially for you my divine..
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine

I've signed your name on each dropp of my sweat and
Will dream of you till the last day of my breath..
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine
Beauty in you boils like wine yet you are so divine..

poem by Dr Vinay Sirigere
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The haunting of a hunter

Once upon a time in the early hours of dawn
A man got up and sallied from his cottage door
Athwart his shoulders a bow and arrows he carried
And towards the forest his steps he hurried.

All day he searched a target for his arrow
Finding none, his anguish grew sharp and narrow.
Hunger and thirst tortured him all day till dusk
And fatigue and pain settled in his limbs to last

Toward the evening as the sun sunk
He by the lake watched a pair of dove white swans
Tall and amorous they looked
As they court their image in a shady nook.

At once an arrow he lanced at one.
A stream of blood red gashed out of the swan.
Late at night his heavy limbs upon a pallet he laid.
Seeking comfort from an adventure long and languid

An unfamiliar dream claimed his haunted rest.
A tortured maid into his slumber burst.
In her one hand she held a white snow feather.
Her tearful, beautiful eyes at him all night were fixed for ever

'What sin what crime you have found in my white dove love? '
She cried engulfed in her loath
Back and forth walked the man in his chamber
Trying to shake off a day not to remember

At the early hour of the next dawn
A man from his cottage door was gone
Across his shoulders a bow and an arrow he took
And in the forest gloom for a well known lake he look

Against the morning sun a single swan he found
With statuesque grace and divine virtue she circled around
A long hour he spotted the sailing swan, alone among none.
Recalling his dreadful dream he knew she was the one.

His inwards were gnawed by regrets
He wished he had never so far strayed
Despair and sorrow dried his tongue
And then at once, he lanced the arrow in his lung

copy rights 2010

poem by Isaac Ziv
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Trickle

Trickle down my sadness
Watch it fall and wash away
Now that Ive got this far Im leaving you
Never coming back to hear you say
Missing you has pained my day
Come to me and hear you say
All that we have gone through cant you see that its enough
Fight for us dont throw it all away
If you want me back
You wont hear me say
Fight for us fight for us
Trickle down my sadness
Watch it fall and wash away
Now that Ive got this far Im missing you
Never coming back to hear you say
Leaving you has pained my day
Come to me and hear you say
All that we have gone through cant you see that its enough
Fight for us dont throw it all away
If you want me back
You wont hear me say
Fight for us fight for us
If you come my way
You wont hear me say
Fight for us fight for us ? ? ?
Trickle down my sadness
Watch it fall and wash away
Now that Ive got this far Im leaving you
Never coming back to hear you say
Missing you has pained my day
Come to me and hear you say
All that we have gone through cant you see that its enough
Fight for us dont throw it all away
If .... say
If .... say
If you want me back
You wont hear me say
Fight for us fight for us
If you come my way
You wont hear me say
Fight for us dont throw away
If you want me back
You wont hear me say
Fight for us fight for us
If you come my way
You wont hear me say
Fight for us dont throw away
If you come my way
You wont hear me say

song performed by Olive
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Inside

I missed what she said
Did I hear her wrong?
I cant seem to have
Anything last that long
Or am I a jerk?
With no sense of what
Makes them warm up?
My life boils down to what I am
Living my life for what I can,
There I go again.
But maybe Im gaining what I need.
Ability to throw them aside,
Keep it inside.
Im writing again,
And out of ideas.
When I see her face,
Im filled up to here.
But what do I get?
I just let her pass.
I just let her pass
My life boils down to what I am
Living my life for what I can,
There I go again.
But maybe Im gaining what I need.
Ability to throw them aside,
Keep it inside.
My life boils down to what I am
Living my life for what I can,
There I go again.
But maybe Im gaining what I need.
Ability to throw them aside,
Keep it inside.

song performed by Unsung Zeros
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Four Seasons : Autumn

Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared; the various blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth; and Summer-suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
Onslow! the Muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow;
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;
From Heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enliven'd, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily chequer'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life:
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind

[...] Read more

poem by James Thomson
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The Giaour

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blesséd isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to lonliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That waves and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant by rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;

Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande—that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,

[...] Read more

poem by Byron (1813)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Giaour: A Fragment Of A Turkish Tale

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blesséd isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to lonliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That waves and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant by rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande-that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,
And every charm and grace hath mixed

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
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z-All Things

I came upon a man
who had long strips
of human heart
and he was
sewing then back together
piece by piece.

Close by
his friend
was collecting tears in bottles
and each tear was being filtered
to be hurt-free.

Others there
were working with Betrayal Notes
and Dear John missives
re-writing them
to reduce the pain.

Self Flagellaters
and Cutters
were given new blood and
wounds sealed.

Family abusers were laid prone
in the hot sun and blood boils
were lanced to their screams.

There was howling from two-timers
and mistresses; ,
killers
and politicians.

A 50 foot cauldron
was tipped
and they were added for seasoning;
the man then turned the heat up.

The two Agonies
clutched each others throat
and squeezed.

Blame was there
Blaming all
and Masochists agreed,
taking credit for all things bad
just for the attention.

There were Fallen Preachers
and Sinning Saints

[...] Read more

poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Lies (The Mirror Sestet)

Lies from you in the sweetest guise,
guise you were, spilling lies.
Tears on my pillow with all my fears,
fears of drowning in all my tears.
Pained with truth, my heart is stained,
stained with lies, my soul is pained.

'I love you' you say, your greatest lie,
lie about love between you and I.
True, you spoke it and I said it to you,
you said it as words, I said it as true.
With him you are not, that was a myth,
myth filled with lies, it's me you're not with.

poem by Adam McKim
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Interrupted dreams in the course of distorted intellect

1) across the ocean of silent maze of life allured by ignorance pained by water
2) lost in fluidity of identity-making proces
3) still going back to eternity of chance operation
4) machinery of emotion trained by forgetfulness of pained life
5) why you are stiving for life with the purpose of life
6) you are not lost but you are lousy with loss
7) seven is still just seven

poem by Nyein Way
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The Two Dreams

I WILL that if I say a heavy thing
Your tongues forgive me; seeing ye know that spring
Has flecks and fits of pain to keep her sweet,
And walks somewhile with winter-bitten feet.
Moreover it sounds often well to let
One string, when ye play music, keep at fret
The whole song through; one petal that is dead
Confirms the roses, be they white or red;
Dead sorrow is not sorrowful to hear
As the thick noise that breaks mid weeping were;
The sick sound aching in a lifted throat
Turns to sharp silver of a perfect note;
And though the rain falls often, and with rain
Late autumn falls on the old red leaves like pain,
I deem that God is not disquieted.
Also while men are fed with wine and bread,
They shall be fed with sorrow at his hand.

There grew a rose-garden in Florence land
More fair than many; all red summers through
The leaves smelt sweet and sharp of rain, and blew
Sideways with tender wind; and therein fell
Sweet sound wherewith the green waxed audible,
As a bird’s will to sing disturbed his throat
And set the sharp wings forward like a boat
Pushed through soft water, moving his brown side
Smooth-shapen as a maid’s, and shook with pride
His deep warm bosom, till the heavy sun’s
Set face of heat stopped all the songs at once.
The ways were clean to walk and delicate;
And when the windy white of March grew late,
Before the trees took heart to face the sun
With ravelled raiment of lean winter on,
The roots were thick and hot with hollow grass.

Some roods away a lordly house there was,
Cool with broad courts and latticed passage wet
From rush-flowers and lilies ripe to set,
Sown close among the strewings of the floor;
And either wall of the slow corridor
Was dim with deep device of gracious things;
Some angel’s steady mouth and weight of wings
Shut to the side; or Peter with straight stole
And beard cut black against the aureole
That spanned his head from nape to crown; thereby
Mary’s gold hair, thick to the girdle-tie
Wherein was bound a child with tender feet;
Or the broad cross with blood nigh brown on it.

Within this house a righteous lord abode,

[...] Read more

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Ruines of Time

It chaunced me on day beside the shore
Of siluer streaming Thamesis to bee,
Nigh where the goodly Verlame stood of yore,
Of which there now remaines no memorie,
Nor anie little moniment to see,
By which the trauailer, that fares that way,
This once was she, may warned be to say.
There on the other side, I did behold
A Woman sitting sorrowfullie wailing,
Rending her yeolow locks, like wyrie golde,
About her shoulders careleslie downe trailing,
And streames of teares from her faire eyes forth railing.
In her right hand a broken rod she held,
Which towards heauen shee seemd on high to weld.

Whether she were one of that Riuers Nymphes,
Which did the losse of some dere loue lament,
I doubt; or one of those three fatall Impes,
Which draw the dayes of men forth in extent;
Or th' auncient Genius of that Citie brent:
But seeing her so piteouslie perplexed,
I (to her calling) askt what her so vexed.

Ah what delight (quoth she) in earthlie thing,
Or comfort can I, wretched creature haue?
Whose happines the heauens enuying,
From highest staire to lowest step me draue,
And haue in mine owne bowels made my graue,
That of all Nations now I am forlorne,
The worlds sad spectacle, and fortunes scorne.

Much was I mooued at her piteous plaint,
And felt my heart nigh riuen in my brest
With tender ruth to see her sore constraint,
That shedding teares a while I still did rest,
And after did her name of her request.
Name haue I none (quoth she) nor anie being,
Bereft of both by Fates vniust decreeing.

I was that Citie, which the garland wore
Of Britaines pride, deliuer'd vnto me
By Romane Victors, which it wonne of yore;
Though nought at all but ruines now I bee,
And lye in mine owne ashes, as ye see:
Verlame I was; what bootes it that I was,
Sith now I am but weedes and wastfull gras?

O vaine worlds glorie, and vnstedfast state
Of all that liues, on face of sinfull earth,
Which from their first vntill their vtmost date

[...] Read more

poem by Edmund Spenser
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Welcome Sir

Kwaah...Kwaah..., No one to notice me
From inside my mom's belly
Angrily I kicked and kicked and kicked
Aaah! mom got pained and pained

Pushes started to put me out
Preparations were on to pull me out
Enough bored inside the tummy
Waiting to be out to see my mummy

Having dreams about my parents
I started creeping into my transits
Step by step mom pressurized me
Steadily with all her compassion for me

Poor mom! 'ma! I'm there for you'
That's all I could murmur
I was fast reaching the world anew
In thirty minutes' rush I landed. A wonder

'Boy' midwife cried! 'Ha, I knew it'
I was handed to Daddy the great
'Welcome sir' Daddy said. I 'Kwaah'ed in shy.

poem by Indira Renganathan
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I Understand 'MAA

The day was so lucky,
So special of your life
The day you were given,
You became my dad’s wife.
No other than anyone
You too had so much hopes,
From your future, for your family
From the life that you chose.

But dad moved away,
You were left alone.
Dad had his problems,
You had your own.
The two of you never
Could build your dream home.

I understand “maa”, it pained
To let him go away,
To see your little world scattering
The feeling you don’t ever say.
I understand “maa”, it pierced
To watch my eyes sore,
To see me missing dad
When you missed him more.

The same fright you nourished
To see your growing fairy.
But I calmed you, I promised
I won’t leave you, I won’t marry.
I regret my words today
To see you all by yourself.
What could you expect the world
When ‘I’ lied, the closest of yourself.

I understand “maa”, it pained
To wave me goodbye
To watch your dearest piece
Separating tracks before your eyes.
I understand “maa”, it pierced
To repeat the history
To again break yourself, hold back
From whoever you considered your treasury.

poem by Jaya Mishra
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Across the Road

To cross or not to cross
was all I thought
when I saw her face across the road.
Her eyes was set as though she lost her soul,
so lost like she is never in this world.
She never minded her shadow on the ground...
her watch as if to melt under her stare,
tic tacked not faster than her heartbeat
for she thought her head was on her feet-
At last, she looked my way
and her pretty face paled.
Suddenly she stood still as though
she gasped some air from death to life...
I can't escape her stare.
To cross or not to cross, I never thought
when across the road she merely stood
nearly meeting her shadow on the ground.
I closed my eyes- I heard the sound
of her crying heart, I found
myself walking away with the woman on my side.
It pained to see her that way cry...
just because I couldn't cross the road for her.
It pained to watch her die.

poem by Jessel Jane Tevar
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The Chapel of the Hermits

'I do believe, and yet, in grief,
I pray for help to unbelief;
For needful strength aside to lay
The daily cumberings of my way.

'I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant,
Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant,
Profession's smooth hypocrisies,
And creeds of iron, and lives of ease.

'I ponder o'er the sacred word,
I read the record of our Lord;
And, weak and troubled, envy them
Who touched His seamless garment's hem;

'Who saw the tears of love He wept
Above the grave where Lazarus slept;
And heard, amidst the shadows dim
Of Olivet, His evening hymn.

'How blessed the swineherd's low estate,
The beggar crouching at the gate,
The leper loathly and abhorred,
Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord!

'O sacred soil His sandals pressed!
Sweet fountains of His noonday rest!
O light and air of Palestine,
Impregnate with His life divine!

'Oh, bear me thither! Let me look
On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook;
Kneel at Gethsemane, and by
Gennesaret walk, before I die!

'Methinks this cold and northern night
Would melt before that Orient light;
And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain,
My childhood's faith revive again!'

So spake my friend, one autumn day,
Where the still river slid away
Beneath us, and above the brown
Red curtains of the woods shut down.

Then said I,-for I could not brook
The mute appealing of his look,-
'I, too, am weak, and faith is small,
And blindness happeneth unto all.

[...] Read more

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Cry Of A Lost Soul

In that black forest, where, when day is done,
With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon
Darkly from sunset to the rising sun,

A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood,
The long, despairing moan of solitude
And darkness and the absence of all good,

Startles the traveller, with a sound so drear,
So full of hopeless agony and fear,
His heart stands still and listens like his ear.

The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll,
Starts, drops his oar against the gunwale's thole,
Crosses himself, and whispers, 'A lost soul!'

'No, Senor, not a bird. I know it well,--
It is the pained soul of some infidel
Or cursed heretic that cries from hell.

'Poor fool! with hope still mocking his despair,
He wanders, shrieking on the midnight air
For human pity and for Christian prayer.

'Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother hath
No prayer for him who, sinning unto death,
Burns always in the furnace of God's wrath!'

Thus to the baptized pagan's cruel lie,
Lending new horror to that mournful cry,
The voyager listens, making no reply.

Dim burns the boat-lamp: shadows deepen round,
From giant trees with snake-like creepers wound,
And the black water glides without a sound.

But in the traveller's heart a secret sense
Of nature plastic to benign intents,
And an eternal good in Providence,

Lifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes;
And to! rebuking all earth's ominous cries,
The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies!

'Father of all!' he urges his strong plea,
'Thou lovest all: Thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee!

'All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear
None from that Presence which is everywhere,

[...] Read more

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Urban Ugliness

Clothed in smoke and asphalt Peking ducks
anti-pollution regulations all
would see enforced, for ambulance on call
can't cater to health-hazards China chucks
out the proverbial window. Safety 'sucks'.
Mis- and man-handled boom pride rides to fall,
too many cities suffer urban sprawl,
- sink in many senseless senses - luck's
running out, as greed feeds 'come-unstucks'
falling life expectations sprinkle mall
and high-rise, cover all with sooty shawl
to leave behind waste land for cars and trucks.
What some would term an economic boom
confirms decay, wormed downp[l]ay, deadly doom.

Uniform urban ugliness, slab on slab,
stressed concrete pressed to duty stifles grass,
stalkers prowl then growl before last gasp
in shadowland where hands skeletal grasp
polluted air ~ there scarecrow trees once dared to ask
panhandlers if anonymous at last
could lift oblivion from who through life wear mask
protective as lost innocence pities our pretty pass...

Walls, eyesore scabs, once whitewashed, bright, now drab,
concretely stand, discarded, sharded, glass
peppered with papered-over panes, rehab,
pained, anguished shivers pass.

Asphalt jungle man_grove swamps, distress,
churches empty, congregations caught
between high rise, high rents, high stress,
low income, low hopes, lower scope: crack fought
for pitch upon cracked sidewalk sorrow paved.

Murder, commonplace, with crime express
delivery on contract. Safety's sought
with kith and kin who oft oppose, oppress
all but the favorite son when tale is told.
Few ease the pain when fortunes wane to nought,
and blood-stains bury memory's distress,
grave isolation caving in bright thought.

Once, there, some say, experimental lab
tested theories ‘fresh' for some sad mass
condo construction programs billed to last.
Shifty shadows harrow, narrow, grab
delinquency's sad h[a]unting ground alas!
overstretched societal elastoplast.

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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