| atlanta
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aurelius
| this is not manhattan. | 1 |
they come here to snapshot | 2 |
centennial olympic park— | 3 |
brown thrashers | 4 |
(not a pigeon, | 5 |
a mocking-bird) | 6 |
and dog-eared | 7 |
trumpeters | 8 |
underground atlanta— | 9 |
commercial | 10 |
echo-chamber | 11 |
for beatboxers | 12 |
and thieves | 13 |
or the coca-cola factory. | 14 |
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it takes an effort, then, | 15 |
to really see the skyscrapers | 16 |
and golden-domed capitol, | 17 |
men of the high-rise, | 18 |
lunch pails and milk, | 19 |
yellow hardhats. | 20 |
what did my great-greats think of | 21 |
as the city lazarusized, steam | 22 |
still purling off the earth— | 23 |
crop failure? prohibition? | 24 |
brown-knuckled baptists? | 25 |
(certainly they didn't see | 26 |
the coke in their soda | 27 |
becoming the crack | 28 |
of gutter rats) | 29 |
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twice i have been in a condo | 30 |
on peachtree boulevard: | 31 |
once at christmas, | 32 |
another for fun. | 33 |
it sways, affable as jazz, | 34 |
wind whistling dixie | 35 |
or the dolorous alto solo | 36 |
of negro spirituals-- | 37 |
i didn't think then | 38 |
of the masons, | 39 |
blistering their hands | 40 |
for supper | 41 |
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they should have been florists, | 42 |
buttonholing emory village | 43 |
with the cherokee rose— | 44 |
maybe then the shapes | 45 |
of our collected history | 46 |
would look a little less | 47 |
like upright caskets. | 48 |
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12 Apr 10 |
Rated 9.1 (8.9) by 12 users.
Active (12): 1, 1, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10
Inactive (2): 7, 9, 10
(define the words in this poem)
(23 more poems by this author)
(4 users consider this poem a favorite)
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Comments:
i really liked the cherokee rose, bit.
— manuka
i'm glad
— aurelius
bump -- c'mon, i'm proud of dis
— unknown
nice poem, padawan. :)
— Sequiturist
atlanta moan; i hear it breathing in the last stanza ever so slightly. i love it. you have the most rich textures and language, and although i 'see' your words differently now, i feel them much more deeply. even with such simple things as milk, buttonholing and caskets.
remarkable the way you place the reader in your lap; it's almost as if you are able to pet the person's head while you're reading to them.
— jenakajoffer
you do make me smile, mon cher
see?
=D
— aurelius
L2-8 aren't happening for me.
L21-25, however, are.
Final stanza makes for an excellent conclusion. Good work.
— chumble
images are nice here
— psychofemale
aurelius. I LOVE YOU.
— Sequiturist
well done
— Callisto
You've made writing look easy, and there isn't a word in this poem that I'd change.
— DianaTrees
Stoic in tone, for sure, who be this marcus aurelis assessing architectural turpi-tude? ;) I like your works very much indeed.
— ghost
You should be proud of this. Great language and structure.
A
— unknown
amen.
— Rss233
GEEZ, i't about time, and well deserved
should have been here at the top a long time ago!
Well done.
— unknown
oh, the cherokee rose poem, i remember this. nice one.
— manuka
what happened to the last #1? no matter. this one satisfies.
— unknown
please wite more.
— unknown
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