Urban Objection

Playtime with alliteration.. :-)

Urban Objection

Not for me a cityscape where

carefree characters become curmudgeonly caricatures.

A cast of card-carrying commandos,

relentlessly raiding racks and rails,

reconnoitring retailers

who use and abuse psychology

to stun the senses of steadfastly salient shoppers.

Turning almost overnight, the mildest 'looks nice'

into 'would like'

into 'want one'

into 'need now'.

An irrational desire to shift stuff from the store

for staff to stack onto shelves and into cupboards.

Careless consumerism converted to cataclysmic clutter,

causing crippling credit

conveniently ignored as an irrelevance in a 'cash or card' world..

Constantly counting costs,

costs in cash, costs in time.

Always time... time, time, time.

Time tenuously spent amid

simultaneous sullen shades of cement and concrete

and the gaudy glare of glistening neons,

nervously nesting between

the technical tweets and twitters of the town.

The beeping and buzzing of the bustle

with the relentlessly rumbling roads of

busy buses, various vans and

the constant clamouring cacophony of the cars.

Doorways and corners

unpopularly populated

by miserable and malodorous mendicants

meandering morosely

or simply sitting slumped

terminally ignored by irascible indigenous itinerants

unwilling to care or contemplate

the catastrophes and calamities

that combine to cause such crappy conditions

Victims of vicious violence, addled by addictions and tormented by tourettes

this invisible tribe driven from hearth and home to an uncaring concrete jungle.

Or perhaps to the park where

the tenuously tended greenery,

is false and far from the fortuitously fresh facets

of the wondrous wild.

Amidst an array of amblers alongside

several steadfast strollers,

seriously sufficient within the self.

Pounding the pathways

past people purposefully pushing prams

never parting with pleasantries

to passing picnic parties

who partake of pasties and pastries.

Not so lazy lunches, 'out-of-office' moments for

rushed sandwiches and quickly consumed croissants

Super-skinny macchiato mums

meeting to moan on men and meaning,

delivering discernment and discrimination

on the desirable designers decided upon

to clothe themselves and their little ones

who clown, caper and cavort carefree

of the criticism and competition they cause.

Penned in parkland amid the crammed concrete of shops and streets

No, give me glorious greens, clear blues, fluffy whites, even grey skies of the wide open wonders �" but not the grey shades of concrete and tarmac

SCH MMXVI

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Okay, I am not a friend or a family member...my perspective is from a stranger reading your poem.
And I say bravo to your writing.
You took me back to that city where I was born and partly raised for nine years..."the Bronx"---
I live in Illinois now in the woods...
much of the land around me reminds me of Vermont where I spent every summer in the fifties roaming pastures, milking cows...being carefree.
I am not a city boy at heart....I was glad to get away from all of that.
And now, idealistic as I might be, I have no materialistic urges...all that is said in this poem is what
I was glad and am glad to have gotten away from.
we are a slightly depressed area here, but a comfortable and real one.
No wants turning to needs, just needing what is enough to get by with a smile and a sigh.
j.

[emmajoy]

'' Or perhaps to the park where -- the tenuously tended greenery, -- is false and far from the -- forrtuitously fresh facets -- of the wondrous wild.'

The alliterative and quite loud music of your long poem set me laughing, NOT in an unkind way but because i imagined your thoughts as you banged the drum telling your thoughts.. and indeed, emotions about modern life! Maybe the poem has a little too much work yet am envious of your choices, envious of the way you've painted sound. Those last two lines are lovely.