By Toi Derricotte
When relatives came from out of town,
we would drive down to Blackbottom,
drive slowly down the congested…
we would drive down to Blackbottom,
drive slowly down the congested…
Explore Poems: Cities & Urban Life
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- By Jan Wagnerdort, wo die stadt versickert,
beim bahndamm, jenseits der in ihrer pracht
erstarrten, riesigen zikade
des umspannwerkes, siehst du sie: gebraucht,
getürmt, ein ganzes feld, gezackt
oder gewellt die maserung in jedem bauch
und dunkler als sämtliche rembrandts
zusammen: gummiakropolis,
heiligtum des banalen—im herbst berennt es
der sturm, erduldet... - By Jan WagnerTranslated By David Keplingerwhere the city starts to come undone,
at the railroad embankment, beyond the staunch
colossal cicada of the substation
in its splendor, you start to notice:
used up, towering, a field of them, worn
or rippled texture in each paunch
and smokier than all the rembrandts
put... - By Walela NehandaCrip (noun): slang for a disabled person/the whole of
the disabled community/
a school of thought
Example: “I’m on crip time”
Meaning: Time bends differently when the universe that is
my body dictates it
Crip (noun): a Black gang that originated in... - By Sally Wen MaoIn Santa Monica, the sunrise has this way of emptying
everything inside you. I visit my future deathbed.
It’s February 1961, and I watch myself sleep.
Dawn: outside my window, date palms sway and lovers
in blue Corvettes make their morning getaways.
There will never... - By Salima RiveraLate night sounds and smells entice
and we prowl like cats
thru Pilsen sidewalks and alleys.
The dank night breeze scatters paper
and other debris like malignant leaves
through mucky gutters.
Tiny shards of glass glitter
like cheap costume jewelry
under the harsh sodium street light
turning weedy vacant... - By Maurya SimonDelirium in the downtown mall today:
Burt Reynolds! All the henna-haired girls
sneer, while their mothers, enthralled, say,
“I saw you in this, I saw you in that–
you were marvelous, simply... - By Amy M. AlvarezNaturally, broken glass, throbbing bass, a roll of bills and a paper bag passed between the hands of hustlers. Just as true: the rows of corn planted by the family at the end of the street. Even in this leaded...
- By Reginald Dwayne Betts[An Outline for a Film]
A woman leans against a man who leans
against a brick wall watching cars stop like dead men
on this one-way street. Some dude glares
like O-Dog from Menace, his face towards some street
we'll never remember where a man... - By Tracy K. Smith200 cows more than 600 hilly acres
property would have been even larger
had J not sold 66 acres to DuPont for
waste from its Washington Works factory
where J was employed
... - By Frank Marshall DavisChicago is an overgrown woman
wearing her skyscrapers
like a necklace ...
Chicago’s blood is kaleidoscopic
Chicago’s heart has a hundred auricles
_____
From the Congo
to Chicago
is a long trek
—as the crow flies
Sing to me of a red warrior moon victorious in a Congo sky ... show me a... - By T. S. EliotI. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest monthApril is the cruellest month The Waste Land begins with a subversion of the first lines of the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. He paints April... - By CAConradOver seven billion human beings live on Earth now. We have displaced or made extinct so many other species of animals, insects, and plants that we have actually lost track! In the age of Emily Dickinson less than a billion...
- By T. S. EliotTwelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes... - By T. S. EliotI
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the... - By Destiny O. BirdsongAfter Donne
exeunt my heart, evangelical god, for you
are still frosted and feathered somewhere
in the eighties, still fed with the fates of fetuses,
“fairies,” and the virginities of fatherless girls.
you inhabited... - By Marianne ChanBiddle City was painted by no one, but I will paint it now.
First, I will use my flat, long-haired brush, spread gray-blue paint evenly over the canvas.
Then, I will capture the art deco building by the capitol, the free-standing barber... - By Janelle Tanthe card machine is broken again.
on the platform, a boy
jumps the turnstile behind me.
i notice him, walking toward the tracks
with no look back.
some days the turnstiles swing forward,
and i don’t look back.
some days by the emergency exit a hand on... - By Patricia Smith"I seen it lots of times, I seen it, just from being
on the street when something new was going down;
I seen kids get killed, a few, my buddy Jules
got bucked, this gang he was down with, I mean he
wasn't even... - By Nabila Lovelaceseen a dove / in passing / the white side
of a soapbox / my quandary over / dividing line
is / any city / of hierarchy / little eyes / decircuit
in 2-year-old / prescription lenses / wearing
fog’s remnants / I point...