The soul is sucked dry!” she cried.
“But who needs a soul in the city?”
She looks out from “a place… dry
and dusty*.” Ironically, the 15th floor.
She has been away from her home
so long that the city is integrated
with her being, her thoughts. City-
molded, but not city-fed. It feeds
upon those who stay this long —
eyes stop investigating, brains
stop reflecting, chips swallow
braincells — a uniform diversity
has absorbed her originality.
The last time she left, went home,
she had forgotten the language.
Warmth, welcome and humanity
had driven her back to the hub,
the tower. Steel, concrete, glass.
Traffic, litter, loneliness… safety.
What once was discordance,
grate, jar, screech, is lullaby —
the hum of humanity’s machine.
* – Juan Ramón Jiménez, “Author’s Club”
* * *
I love how she loves the city that has become her identity ~ and vice versa.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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An amazing poem Charley but those last two stanzas are stunning!
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Thank you! Again, it’s just the image pulling me along.
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Yes, without nature we are just husks that repeat like endless office cubicles…
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Nature and nuture. Thanks, Randall!
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Ah, you are right. nurture too.
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“Welcome….. to the machine.” Truly chilling or maybe I misread.
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You can never go wrong with Floyd lyrics! You read it as intended. I always keep it in the back of my brain box, though, that the poet merely starts the poem…. Glad you enjoyed my offering!
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Glad I read it as intended. Agreed on poet merely starting the poem. I did and do 🙂
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What happens then is out of our hands… and some people’s minds.
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Its good to withdraw then return to understand what you had with a new perspective.
Happy Sunday
Much💜love
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Sometimes it makes you feel grateful, sometimes it plants the kernel of righteous dissatisfaction. Pleased that you stopped by to read!
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I especially love the last stanza—it could really stand alone as its own poem.
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Worth considering! Thank you for stopping by to read. (Where may I return the favor?)
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“To the citiest people in the whole wide world/you’ve been unkind to an un-city girl/from the stone walls you grew, so I’m not blaming you/ but look what the city is doing to you” –Melanie Safka
–Shay
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‘exactly! Thank you for sharing that.
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A reality check!
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Too true.
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Interesting take on the way she’s found herself in the city and the balance of safety and intrusiveness.
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It is surprising what we miss when we think we won’t miss anything. Love that last line.
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Thank you! We miss what most consumes us.
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I really love this one!
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Thank you! Not sure everyone got what I was getting at. Not sure it was necessary that they did. Glad you like it.
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