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rinueI sit on a park bench, my voice raised in a song
to call the gypsies, my hands strumming the strings below
my fingers. The guitar bucks and strains, but I know its secrets -
now stroking, now plucking, now pressing, now leaving.
My words are a dare to the streets of the city:
Show me your sweetness! Be what you promised!
Between the door and the phone sits a book which I promised
to return, its spine broken and its swan-song
a thing of times long past. It is a guide to the city,
written some fifty years hence; its landmarks are buried below
mountains of glass and steel, the stones only known to those leaving
through this ancient tome, reading its obsolete secrets.
The land stretches beneath me as buildings fall and reveal their secrets.
This is a dream, and one one I will forget with the promised
dawn of morning. For now, I see skyscrapers leaving
their daytime posts; the air is a song
of spices and cymbals. These are the walkways that stretch below
the workday, the dyeying and weaving of the Undercity.
Sometimes when I look down a narrow alley, I think I see a city
different from my own, with a promise of better secrets
and hidden excitement. If I could take an elevator down below
the parking lots, I would find the poet gypsies who promised
to wait for me, their breath raised in migration song
and their tambourines beating the rhythm of leaving.
In the cool drought of autumn, brown trees are unleaving;
the castoffs pile in drifts that clog the gutters of the city.
Birds prepare to fly south for the winter, taking their song
and the color of their breasts, the beat of their secrets.
I want to go with them, but this morning I promised
to sort through the postcards and the bills hidden below.
In late November, I glimpse the wires stretching below
the street; telephone men work at the frayed cable, leaving
the manhole open to bring them light. Is this the promised
lifeblood, the pulsing nerves that power the city?
The men call to each other, but their words are secrets
of jargon, with cadence mysterious as song.
In spring, I listen to the song of traffic passing below
my window, and I dream of leaving this tease of a city,
a coquette which has promised much, but who keeps all her secrets.
to call the gypsies, my hands strumming the strings below
my fingers. The guitar bucks and strains, but I know its secrets -
now stroking, now plucking, now pressing, now leaving.
My words are a dare to the streets of the city:
Show me your sweetness! Be what you promised!
Between the door and the phone sits a book which I promised
to return, its spine broken and its swan-song
a thing of times long past. It is a guide to the city,
written some fifty years hence; its landmarks are buried below
mountains of glass and steel, the stones only known to those leaving
through this ancient tome, reading its obsolete secrets.
The land stretches beneath me as buildings fall and reveal their secrets.
This is a dream, and one one I will forget with the promised
dawn of morning. For now, I see skyscrapers leaving
their daytime posts; the air is a song
of spices and cymbals. These are the walkways that stretch below
the workday, the dyeying and weaving of the Undercity.
Sometimes when I look down a narrow alley, I think I see a city
different from my own, with a promise of better secrets
and hidden excitement. If I could take an elevator down below
the parking lots, I would find the poet gypsies who promised
to wait for me, their breath raised in migration song
and their tambourines beating the rhythm of leaving.
In the cool drought of autumn, brown trees are unleaving;
the castoffs pile in drifts that clog the gutters of the city.
Birds prepare to fly south for the winter, taking their song
and the color of their breasts, the beat of their secrets.
I want to go with them, but this morning I promised
to sort through the postcards and the bills hidden below.
In late November, I glimpse the wires stretching below
the street; telephone men work at the frayed cable, leaving
the manhole open to bring them light. Is this the promised
lifeblood, the pulsing nerves that power the city?
The men call to each other, but their words are secrets
of jargon, with cadence mysterious as song.
In spring, I listen to the song of traffic passing below
my window, and I dream of leaving this tease of a city,
a coquette which has promised much, but who keeps all her secrets.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-19 03:17 pm (UTC)Personally, I think this one, in it's entirety, could be something very good with a bit of revision. It's imagery is very strong.
The parts I liked: The guitar part of course, cause fuckin' yea. I very much like the description of the telephone men mostly because this is not something one would usually view with such wonderment. I did like the bit about the travel guide. It's very profound.
However, my favorite part of the whole thing would be the following:
"Birds prepare to fly south for the winter, taking their song
and the color of their breasts, the beat of their secrets."
Those two lines are beautifully constructed for one thing, and for a second, they remind me of one of my favorite poems. I've quoted it to you, but I suddenly can't remember the name as it's the one I found on the inside of a bus.
-C