Monday 19 August 2013

Under Cardboard Towers Bridge


the 
mood 
in which 
the poem speaks 
is on an instant open 
for the words 
come from the street 
as spoken there 
by workless men 
with hands now tied 
to useless tasks 

"one time 
we were the salt of earth
but now we are its jerks"
says one  

"and slaves 
to bankers interest" 
someone laughs 
beside a box 

to which another 
swift replies:  
"we built a bank 
we built the bank 
and now that bank
 it owns us"



4 comments:

  1. Enjoyed that. Shades of The Hollow Men.

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  2. Thanks Dominic. Poem was prompted by a quote from Robert Creeley: An American (sic) may choose as John Ashbery did . . . poems . . . from the diction of Wall Street Journal . . . but it is his own necessity . . . not . . . rigidity of literary taste". So prompted by the reference to Ashberry and Wall Street I took the view of those now homeless whom Wall Street had ground down. Obviously I placed it in another location. The concrete form I have used for the first verse tries to show that particular place.

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  3. Sadly this poem speaks the truth Gwil.

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