mid-Manhattan (from memory for one shoot Sunday)
photo prompt by Scott Wyden
a sun tracing its autumn route
never seen here
no shadow falls from slants of light
columns of smoke
the weeping in tunnels
the grating of steel cogs
here only the dream of skies
on narrow slits a canopy propped up
by concrete, glass and steel
needles piercing the day moon
blinking at humans
dogs and cars–toys of King Kong
sunset grinds
a maddening ruckus:
cars rushing as if to escape
people shaken
along with a colony of ants
deadened by the rasp of wheels
blasting horns wheezing air brakes
a wailing ambulance
in a duet with a fire truck
and police cars
in a rush to save a kitten on a terrace
hanging by its paws
the swarm on sidewalks
darkens with dusk
a flowing mush of bodies wrapped
in thick armors of invisibility –
black coat, jacket, cape, cap, boots,
and square-toed shoes
here, no unhurried strides
heads don’t turn
lost in inner spaces
no one misses who gets snared
and stalls: the throng belches on
eyes riveted to warning lights
“Don’t Walk” the wound up toys
stop “Walk” and do
I am lost here
I shed my name I wonder
about the color of my hair
the hue of my skin
I have turned mute
“I’m sorry,” I lisp
as if I really am
sorry about a slice of sky
the undertow that pulls me
to surrender
to the winking stars
Copyright (c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
A poem written from memory prompted by a photo of Scott Wyden posted for One Shoot Sunday for an absolute challenge at One Stop Poetry, th inimitable gathering place for poets and artists. Check out the other poets’ take! Click on OSP on my blogroll.
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About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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jornales 
You capture everything I abhor and abominate about cities–that loss of any hope of an identity without a cultivated oddness that is itself a kind of conformity. I love esp the finish, and the kitten–there are cogs in my poem too. They’re just *there* aren’t they?– so plain you can almost see them grinding,
Thanks again so much, Joy! Those years in New York encrypted heavily in my consciousness it seems so much so that each line I write about Manhattan seem to spring up as vividly as that moment when I saw it. Those “cogs”, yes indeed, they’re real but not as looming in other cities like here in Vancouver as they are in NY. “Abominable”, yes, but also “life-giving” in an inimitable way. The energy and synergy of that city really ‘yanks’ from your spirit the most of who you are or can be. Thank you so much again and again!
“on narrow slits a canopy propped up
by concrete, glass and steel”
Loved the picture these lines made…
Yes, aren’t they? Thanks for loving those lines!
love all the textures of the city…all the noise and crush of bodies…you captured that well…to me that is just more of the richness of it…could not be there forever but…i like my tastes…
Thanks again. Brian! Thanks for loving how I captured it. I also love how we share a deep love for the textures of cities!
all of those multi textures ~layering ~ teeming ~ so much happening ~ cats rescued ~ automatons ~ wound up toys
really well captured and a great take ~ Lib @Libithina
Thanks, Libithina! Thanks for a great comment!
Agree with previous comments and wish to add that I enjoy reading your work each week. What struck me most about your poem was when you followed up using the word “here.” It creates a great sense of immediacy that works extremely well with the subject matter and imagery 🙂
Thanks again, Adam! Have I thanked you enough for OSP? These Sunday challenges and the OSW space have changed me as an aspiring poet–I feel so new so different in a sense of being quite who I had hoped to be! Thanks for your wonderful critique!