Poem: Urban Impressions

I was asked to read a few poems recently for a film about the Occupy Movement in Maine, and below is one of them, "Urban Impressions." It was originally published in Chaffey Review.

Carry Forth,

Owl

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Urban Impressions

highway sounds,
jejune as the hiss of waves.
the smog brutal.
abusive of its partner, dust.
the sun and moon
cute in eyeliner,

some kind of goth
leather-tar pain-fed life,
corset whose laces are wounded streets.
sex primped to sell.
money attracted
to the most competent seller,
the seller and the money
taking each other’s drug,
the divorce rate rich,
the homeless amassed
like scabs on the city’s
emotional wounds.

the Beast hoarding its own purpose,
a beyond-human sin.
cars just blood cells,
legs follicles,
a child’s sob a cut.
only the Beast can rise
with its muscles of spires,
hundreds of stories
of lower and lower lusts,
ribs of cement, femurs of steel,
the growling pug snouts
of arenas.


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