Monday, October 17, 2016

At back alleys & underground tunnels

"The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots."  Bob Dylan



I am your failed experiment, your outcast that you hide from the tourists who flock to see the famous CN Tower and Rogers Centre.  I am the rusty car you hide at the back alleys. The one with the unpainted doors, broken hood and dirty windows.   I etch loneliness and regrets on the graffitied walls.   Under the darkness, I hobble along city streets where every space is calculated with parking meters and silver glass towers shimmering like diamonds.  Only the penguins greet me, nibbling the breadcrumbs near my feet.  I set a stained foam cup on the sidewalk and watch the tail light of cars and buses blurring out of sight.  My liquor-breath mixes with autumn's cool wind, blowing this morning's newspapers deep to the shadows.     

A lilac maple leaf falls
on the fountain, empty of water-  
while black birds count-
perched atop electrical lines  
basking under hunter's moon




Grace@Everyday Amazing


Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Haibun Monday Hosted by Bjorn Rudberg.   Join us when the pub opens at 3pm EST.  Thanks for the visit~

28 comments:

  1. Written in an alter-ego in the first person, this paints a tragic image of the dark side of life.

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  2. I love the sense of a collective voice of all the shadows of the city, the hidden soul of the city itself... It's almost like a choir of background... and the contrasting image of the blackbird in your tanka adds so much to the visual

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  3. Nothing happier than a homeless person with friends..
    Nothing sadder than a city home with no friends..
    Village is alWays wHeRe LoVe lives..
    Cities froWn with sMaLL
    love and
    skyscRapers
    thaT tOuch A
    sky oFF HeLL..:)

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  4. I so enjoyed this underbelly of city trappings. So often I used to see the rusty cars at the back of alleys and on vacant lots, often filled with the stuff of the homeless. So sad. so very sad. I love the maple leaf in the waterless fountain. So very evocative.

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  5. I love the opening: "I am your failed experiment" ... And this: "Only the penguins greet me"

    Oh my, this is gorgeous:
    "A lilac maple leaf falls
    on the fountain, empty of water"

    Incredible work, Grace.

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  6. Amazing contrast between the prose, Grace, with the darkness, outcasts, rusty cars, graffitied walls, as well as the 'parking meters and silver glass towers shimmering like diamonds' - and the penguins - that was a surprise! - and the tanka, with its lilac maple leaf and empty fountain.

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  7. My goodness, you brought the entire scene to life with your vivid images and choice of diction. Beautifully penned.


    Lots of love,
    Sanaa

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  8. What an image you painted

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  9. This is a very creative take on the prompt for me it's like two poems, intertwined, yet independent--love the tanka. I am the photographer searching those alleys for the rusted abandoned cars, the homeless, the broken fire escape ladders, the rusted pipes, the crumbling brick, & the bright graffiti.

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  10. Great point of view in this, Grace, and I love your opening line.

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  11. Grace! What the heck? that was well written... bravo!
    ZQ

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  12. I am your failed experiment,
    your outcast that you hide from the tourists

    There are so many relics that city fathers allowed to be strewn around among the down-trodden hidden from view. Perhaps not having enough political will to keep the city clean. Wonder if this interpretation holds water, Grace? Brilliant write!

    Hank

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  13. oh. this creatively done poem tugs the heart. you gave voices to the unheard ones.

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  14. Powerful and eloquent. Some incredible lines in this ... wonderful writing!

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  15. "Baby, it's cold outside" comes to mind as well shelters and psych wards filling with homeless peeps. Love, cat.

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  16. What many don't see as they go to the tourist traps, sure captured the scene indeed. So many look past the homeless.

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  17. Cities are often facades polished and preening while behind the false fronts so many lives pass unnoticed.

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  18. perfect personification Grace - just enough elaboration to walk these side-walks with

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  19. "I am your failed experiment, your outcast that you hide from the tourists"...such a powerful and sad picture.

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  20. Your Toronto,or my Saskatoon...our any other city, it seems, contains its share of "failed experiments."

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  21. Such contrast between the prose and the tanka. Really sends the point of the gritty city side home. You've painted the "underbelly" of a bit city so well here....images are so vivid and visceral.

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  22. It's so true to reality you could've lived it. Insightful and as with Bjorn's the write shows empathy.

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  23. I like that you expose the realities of the homeless, not only with images but with honesty. They are so overly stereotyped and misunderstood. The stained cup reminds me of a day that I passed by a lonesome soul, walked another block before turning around.

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  24. Heartbreaking and emotional read. I've been homeless and I am deeply moved by your first person voice.

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  25. I loved this...the way you combined stark urban reality with nature and a feeling of surrealism at points. janice (ontheland)

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  26. Like Mother Wintermoon, I know from experience the truth which abides in these words.

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  27. Like Mother Wintermoon, I know from experience the truth which abides in these words.

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