Victorclaude

Dec 06, 2010 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

73rd street

rasping cough explodes
from cold, $2.00 room.

Leon peers through
filth-clouded glass, across
snow winter-scape at sparkling,
snow covered everything--
fretful city sleeps.

his keen sight flicks from one scene to
next--
from anonymous hookers opposite corner
to sleepless steeples of death churches
marching city skyline,
out of sight until his gaze is caught
by darkness of city’s edge where night bandits
lurk, planning early morning breakings--
droogs each one, snarling eyes, blank, with
avaricious, sneak-thief sight.

city’s heart incandescent glowing,
sounds seize his sight to witness
three bums, alley entrance quarrel over last drops
from bottomed out bottle of thunderbird swill--

his sight quickens,
red lights, blue lights--
fire erupts from four story tenement cross
his own street.
“poor bastards,” his thin-edged mind, smirks.
woman jumps from 2nd floor window,
lands in white snow, freezes deadly.
broken arms, breathes last breath, face of an
angel, seventeen-years-old, body bag bound;
its zipper is heard in seven kingdoms.

from his eyes tears fall for her freedom.
dragging soiled kerchief, wipes them away,
stares at heaven’s light; twinkling holes enclosed
in perfect blackness.

window sill where he leans,
freezing cockroach walks slowly past, mind alert
for food.

Leon watches, benevolently strokes red-brown
back once, and spits on the sill.
cockroach slurps sustenance joyfully.
warm again,
accelerates its pace.

vcp

About This Poem

Style/Type: Free verse

Editing Stage: Not actively editing

About the Author

Country/Region: USA

Favorite Poets: Wallace Stevens, D. H. Lawrence, Charles Bukowski, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Percy Bysshe Shelley, T. S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, Pablo Neruda, Joni Mitchell, William Shakespeare, Basho, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kelly Marie Hayner, Susan Wydville. D. Phillip Caron, Elizabeth Bishop.

Comments

mand

14 years 7 months ago

Helloo Victorclaude

Very powerful poem. A sad tale so very well describing the harsh reality of 73rd street. Your imagery is brilliant with a keen observation of sights and sounds.

Thank you for sharing this amazing poem.

Love Mand xxxxxxxxx

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Thank you, Mand -- very much.

Victor

brittle light

14 years 7 months ago

I don't usually pick out

I don't usually pick out favorite lines,or images, a poem being a "whole". but "its zipper is heard in seven kingdoms" incited a deep compassion, and created a path in which to more closely identify, and empathize with the characters. I felt this one.....

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Al,

Every time I open this poem, and read those words about the body bag, even I get a shiver.

Thanks,

Victor

themoonman

14 years 7 months ago

Victor ...

I have to say thank you for sharing this, this piece is really
quite affective ... caused me to read it over and over, partly
because I tend to stumble a bit on some of your lines, I think
that may be more me than you. After reading it I had to read
it again and to me, that is the best thing to cause in a reader.

great imagery Victor ... delivered!

Richard

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Richard,

You are more than welcome. I am glad that you enjoyed it more than once.

Victor

Kailashana2

14 years 7 months ago

I've reread this enough times

I've reread this enough times to say "this is the finest art of witnessing"...

Your "zipper is heard in seven kingdoms"just about brought me to my knees. (Yes Al, my favourite too)

I wonder the circumstances of this poem, the who, what, where and when. I know the why.

Love,
Anna

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Anna, my dear,

The circumstances? I made them all up. Standing inside Leon's head for the time it took to write this was rather uncomfortable on the one hand, and quite peaceful on the other. He is altogether a saint-like figure working on the last threads of accumulated karma, getting ready to not ever come back to this world of woe.

Love,

Victor

Geezer

14 years 7 months ago

The imagery...

here is amazing! This was my cup of tea. Brutally honest, and compelling. I had exactly the same reaction as Richard. I stumbled a lttle here and there, but found even that added to the work. Great job! ~ Gee

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Geez,

Thanks for the read and comment. I am not quite certain about the stumbling parts, but I am much too close to this piece to see them for myself.

Much appreciated.

Victor

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Yenti,

I have a microbiologist friend in Panama, Central America who does research on food plants there, who says, "I am convinced now as well that there is no hope for humanity....only extinction." Rather a grim editorial comment on the world at large, but we both agree that humans are one of the only expendable species on this rock in space. We are one of the only species that kill members of their own species. Pretty weird!! If extinction comes, it will be well deserved. In the meantime, let's write some more poems.

Victor

Kailashana2

14 years 7 months ago

Ian, I posted the photograph

Ian, I posted the Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph and story and wrote a poem on the old site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter

The photographer committed suicide saying "I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...I have gone to join Ken [recently deceased colleague Ken Oosterbroek] if I am that lucky."

Sometimes I wonder how anyone survives whose heart and mind have been opened to the brutality of everyday life.

Sometimes I am sure it's because those of us who are poets at heart are able to see the beauty of the rose. and not just feel the pain of her thorns.

~Anna

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/photography/articles/2845/title/kevin-carte…

Victorclaude

14 years 7 months ago

Anna,

I think that I shall forego opening this link. I have plenty of those kind of images in my head already. Don't need one more. I hope others will look!

Eduardo Cruz

14 years 7 months ago

Victor

this read not as poem, the describtions are very vivid. it's truly large as life.
to me your writing is the thing of screen and stage. so well done. Bravo, I have to say it,
"Break a leg"
Always Eddie