Poetry
Sights and Sounds of the City
This poem is accompanied by by audio.
Click here to listen as you read.
Aristocratic skyscrapers extend across the urban landscape,
Its murky steel precisely ordered against the street’s dingy stone.
Our predictability rendered life almost perfect in its simplicity,
And I couldn’t imagine anything different until that first pop of colour.
The sirens squeal for everyone, but are you near enough to hear?
And how near is near enough to note that you were there
Yet removed enough so that you remain to share?
Can unbloodied and unbroken be unfair?
Its brilliance was overwhelming, which left it so much more intriguing that
That single tinge revealed an entire world ever present yet unnoticed.
Suddenly, everything I saw radiated stripes, spots, and checkers;
And I quickly found evidence of the wicked patterns between them.
My own misery musters my immediate motivation,
As I canvas my cadaver for cuts, carves, and legions.
I find my friend and their friend, eventually eyeing the press’s presence.
As we await the assistance of an ambulance drawing from the distance.
We might all bleed vermillion, but that neglects
Whether we were pricked, stabbed, or shot.
It ignores the skin that swells, the heart that stops,
And the community that suffers that loss.
Hours away, another rescue readies its wagon.
Cruising crowdless, they skip a person unheard and unnoticed,
Helping not who needs it most but who howls the loudest.
And I, with my wounds, am thankful to be thunderous.
Existence was easier before I envisioned
The endless opportunities that I’ve been afforded
By proxy of my privilege, my power and position.
Before I discerned the darkness that dominates
And the unrelenting glow of the rainbow it erases.
The screams become overwhelming, exhausting and quite numbing;
Must we tune in and turn towards the tons of torment still spreading?
Or can I simply lament my own, looking for safety within my home?
Perhaps you plug your ears, close your eyes,
Trying not to comprehend it.
Life’s easier expecting that our world is normally right,
That we are normally right.
But that neglects the truth set in front of you.
Click here to listen as you read.
Aristocratic skyscrapers extend across the urban landscape,
Its murky steel precisely ordered against the street’s dingy stone.
Our predictability rendered life almost perfect in its simplicity,
And I couldn’t imagine anything different until that first pop of colour.
The sirens squeal for everyone, but are you near enough to hear?
And how near is near enough to note that you were there
Yet removed enough so that you remain to share?
Can unbloodied and unbroken be unfair?
Its brilliance was overwhelming, which left it so much more intriguing that
That single tinge revealed an entire world ever present yet unnoticed.
Suddenly, everything I saw radiated stripes, spots, and checkers;
And I quickly found evidence of the wicked patterns between them.
My own misery musters my immediate motivation,
As I canvas my cadaver for cuts, carves, and legions.
I find my friend and their friend, eventually eyeing the press’s presence.
As we await the assistance of an ambulance drawing from the distance.
We might all bleed vermillion, but that neglects
Whether we were pricked, stabbed, or shot.
It ignores the skin that swells, the heart that stops,
And the community that suffers that loss.
Hours away, another rescue readies its wagon.
Cruising crowdless, they skip a person unheard and unnoticed,
Helping not who needs it most but who howls the loudest.
And I, with my wounds, am thankful to be thunderous.
Existence was easier before I envisioned
The endless opportunities that I’ve been afforded
By proxy of my privilege, my power and position.
Before I discerned the darkness that dominates
And the unrelenting glow of the rainbow it erases.
The screams become overwhelming, exhausting and quite numbing;
Must we tune in and turn towards the tons of torment still spreading?
Or can I simply lament my own, looking for safety within my home?
Perhaps you plug your ears, close your eyes,
Trying not to comprehend it.
Life’s easier expecting that our world is normally right,
That we are normally right.
But that neglects the truth set in front of you.