Poetry Corner: CityScape

POETRY CORNER

– 6/08/16

♣ We welcome and encourage your response especially in the form of short poems. You may reply by leaving a comment below.

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matsukaze

arriving from haiku land
walking the pavement,
hands stuffed in my pockets –
this is tanka city

tonight this tanka world
baptized in cold winds and rainpour
heading to the bistro
for a cup of coffee

after a long day
held up in my warm hovel
this night’s bitter freeze over tanka city
solitary car in empty streets

after 3 am
at my breakfast table waiting, waiting
for some verse to fall in my lap
some tanka to store this life in

matsukaze is a classical vocalist and actor who resides in South Dallas, Texas. Since 2006, he’s been writing in the Japanese form called tanka, “a short song”, older than haiku. He says “Cities are repositories of variety and all manner of people. There’s so much diversity and sameness within in a thriving city that any and everything becomes a thing of significance to the eye of a poet.”

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Shanghai city street (Photo – Kathabela Wilson).

Gary Blankenship

golden spires
once broke the tallest clouds
a rich city
brought low from within
lies buried deep beneath sands

Gary Blankenship is a poet, sketch artist and federal retiree known for roses and dandelions. City was inspired by current world events and recent archaeological finds.

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The view of the dusk in front of our living room window; Mashhad. Iran (Photo Mrym Prym*).

Pat Geyer

forms in the mist
as if other worldly…
through my window
i watch the city
take on new life

Pat Geyer is a poet who lives in East Brunswick, NJ. She says “Many years ago, I had a friend with an apartment in New York City. When visiting, I couldn’t wait to get up early and look at the city through the window. NYC has a night life that each morning forms a new world.”

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*Mrym Prym says “it is one of my hobbies to stand for many minutes behind the living room window every day to watch the sky. I watch it when the first rays of sun start to shine throw the plain tree leaves in front of the window; I watch it when little white clouds sail throw it at noon and I watch it when the sky burns in fire every evening.”

> Kathabela is posting this Poetry Corner from Tsukuba, Japan, hours before her flight home with her husband Rick Wilson, professor emeritus of mathematics at Caltech. Rick created the accompanying Shanghai video during their month-long trip to China and Japan, involving mathematics and poetry.