Dark City

http://www.south24.co.uk/images/nyc.jpg

Artwork by p0m
http://p0m.deviantart.com/art/Dark-City-42115963




Write a poem about the dark underbelly of the city. The lies, the secrets, the illicit liaisons… Give us intense, anguished, roaring, deadly…

Bonus twist:  
Selected entries can be considered for publication in the next issue of Serendipity Magazine.  Those chosen for publication will be published under their username (if you want real or other names, please PM me), and include a link to their poems here on DUP.  If you do NOT want to be considered for publication, please PM me.

I will be choosing a winner here for this forum competition on DUP, but submissions for publication are to be considered by the editorial staff at the magazine.  Anyone interested in more details, please message me or see the magazine blog:
http://magserendipity.blogspot.gr/2013/06/poetry-challenge-urban-art.html

Old and new poems accepted
Collaborations accepted
Two weeks
One entry only
500 word limit

One more thing… I have a nod from the editors that they are very interested in entries that can provide a video reading on youtube. Are you listening? It has to be youtube - that is the only technical link that their online host can feature. (Yudu.com provides the site for online browsing. Only youtube works for embedding videos there. Did I say it enough times?)

Also for those of you who do NOT pay attention: If chosen for publication, if you want real or other names, please PM me, else your DU username will be used.  If you do NOT want to be considered for publication, please PM me.

OK, off you go.



Psst, some DUP poets were already published! They participated in previous competitions and were in the last three issues for the Elements of Air, Fire and Water:

You can see these issues here:
http://free.yudu.com/item/details/634718/Serendipity-Magazine---Elements-in-Art---Air
http://free.yudu.com/item/details/707552/Serendipity-Magazine---Elements-in-Creativity---FIRE
http://free.yudu.com/item/details/855162/Serendipity-Magazine-Volume-02-Issue-4-Elements-in-Art---Water

http://files.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/homeless-street-signs.jpg


GENOCIDE OF THE HOMELESS


When we think of GENOCIDE, we think of DARFUR

When we REMEMBER genocide, we remember ARMENIANS and JEWS

I walk down a street in Toronto...the homeless sit and beg

We drive down a street in Detroit and see a man sleeping on the ground

They said there were no homeless in suburbia...but come to our library

There is a man who lives in his tiny van and visits the library all day

Are there homeless in the country...???? maybe they went to the city

On a cold Toronto day, the sewer covers open from underneath

Two native men appear, their breaths freeze in the air

I saw all this with my own eyes, I did not make it up

In a cold country you can freeze to death at night

Would anybody CHOOSE this kind of life?

Darwinian thinking says only the strong survive

Yet these same "Christians" say THEY CHOSE THIS

Jesus came to help the poor, the needy and the sick

What would Jesus say about the HOMELESS who are often MENTALLY ILL?

Jesus cured the sick and drove the devils out.....

We do not imitate the Life Of Christ by IGNORING THE HOMELESS

We hope they will just go away....which they will

For how long would YOU LIVE without FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER?

Not very long....we have concentrations camps hiding in plain sight

But they do not looks like Dachau or Auschwitz....they are the dark and nasty streets

Where the HOMELESS live....until they die and no STATISTICS are kept

So how many HOMELESS die every day on this earth?

The answer would make you sick.....

Hitler and Stalin were not as cunning as we are...

They said they were going to kill and they did what they said they would

We go about our business, day after day....the same homeless people

Linger, we step over them on the way......Are we GENOCIDAL

Is there a little HITLER in ALL of US....?

The RESEARCH demonstrates that this is true

If we are given the power over others

Notice how power corrupts

Notice how money makes friends

Notice Politicians who say the end justify the means

In a DEMOCRACY where they have been ELECTED by free peoples

We are so smug and say....we bring DEMOCRACY to others

If DEMOCRACY includes HOMELESSNESS....it sounds freaky to me

For only in GOD'S SWEET HEAVEN can all men really be free...



The above photo is from Toronto.
I have lived there long enough to tell you
I saw homeless, every single day.

Kitty, thanks for kicking off this competition, with your unique presentation of the homeless people.

"Tourist Trap"

Uptown
downtown
there's no escaping the herd
glassy eyes hidden beyond the plague doctor

walking corpses loaded with uncertainty
don't stumble into the cross-hairs
free meal for a drug deal

Damn Tourist!

did your travel agent not tell you we're the murder capital?

"NO"

i didn't think so
i guess that would be bad for tourism

Oh Well
cause now you're dead
in some alley

Welcome to the Big Easy...

Love this one Micheal...

Dark City

Faceless shadows roam the streets
looting light as it secretes
starved of love
cold and alone
the distasteful groaning that they drone

Dirty secrets adorn the walls
hollow laughter fills the halls
hope is lost
truth in defeat
kept in line by fear and deceit

Painted people selling souls
desperation and escape maybe their goals
grime and lust
the physical drain
taking the road of knowing no shame

Pinstripe suits playing god
over paid and extremely odd
slick with image
slaves to greed
drunk with power when they succeed

All live in this dark city of the lost
pain and suffering is the cost
afraid to change
married to their sin
all breeds of monster kept within.

Our Future, Our Present

To whomever this may concern,
Can you guess how smart we are?
Do you know what our rank is?
Our GPA?
Does this great nation care,
For the well being of a human
Or the torment of our minds.

Through the halls of long silence
And breaking bells,
The sounds of marching shoes,
A plastered smiled to blend
Safely into the walls.
Silent towers built of college posters,
School events,
Sometimes the occasional outburst,
Of the average rebellious teen.

We are the top, the bright,
The good, the example,
The ever persistent volunteer,
And ever continuously studious.
We are your hopes and dreams.

We are dying.
Of heartbreak, of fear.
We are Atlas,
And the world is heavy.
We are screams in the night,
A pill on the counter,
A knife from the kitchen,
A gun from the closet.

How lost are we in these halls,
Colored green, orange, and red.

To whomever this may concern,
May we live until tomorrow.

Hell Is On The Earth

scar upon scar,
 
the deadening of nerves
 
to feel,
 
blast upon blast
 
the deafening of ears
 
to hear,
 
death upon death,
 
the thinning of the herd,
 
to consume,
 
we are left stupified,
 
bleeding in the streets,
 
but we know,
 
we know that the good have left us,
 
the remainder destroy themselves,
 
consider this:
 
society is no sanctuary,
 
to save it we must abandon it,
 
leave your job,
 
school,
 
clubs,
 
apartments,
 
leave them.
 
we must disconnect,
 
and try again.
 
retreat!
 
go to the land,
 
beg it's forgiveness,
 
learn again to live on purpose,
 
& within tribal courtesies,
 
force yourselves to commune,
 
& speak face to face.
 
cities are havens to the mad,
 
we flock to them,
 
worshipping them,
 
as centers of culture & taste,
 
we should leave them,
 
as forlorn monuments,
 
to failure,
 
& concentrated humanity,
 
in all of it's hoplessness.

Slip into the shadows
 
 
Man of many talents, jack-of-all trades
A face easily forgotten,
perfect for this line of work
My craft though, does not rank cheap
 
Today I am poor peasant, wandering town
similar in-difference, the variation
like dozens of towns I frequented, hardly noteworthy
A slop shop advertising, fresh mutton stew
welcome change from dogs broth, rat pie
The slop shop's waste nothing
some have reported to cook up the dead
tough times call for such
 
This tiny agricultural community  
a well oiled machine
Run on corruption and greed
such a familiar song these days
 
Disgruntled, they summon me
"We know, your fee does not come cheap
we have pooled our resources
this must be taken care of, tonight"
 
I slip into the shadows, spying my target
Ten thousand gold coins, your life is void
Stalking my prey, I leap at my chance
Three quick thrusts from behind
the blade coated, my own special concoction
Death guaranteed, quiet, slow
most excruciating
 
I am the demon of the shadows
the nightmare beneath the bed
the story told, so children behave
I am.
.
.
ASSASSIN

SAGA of a town


For ageless years
I dwelled in the corpseless sea
Black wormed womb
Beteen the leaves of the trees
And the damp moist I lay

The river banks are turning red
Sour rain infests the flower beds
Deprived and stripped bare
Angels of deforming night join here

Manifested incarnation
Of time and tricks and treason
Scorcerry and salvation
Secrets of the street

In empty bottles
Dreams folded
Hidden
In suburbia


Sun forever sinking
Over emerald clouds
City lights hidden
She hails in shrouds

Night nears and the sniper
Smears the beggers blood
Smothered by suburban skies

Neon lights shine  
Mortar and Brick
Brick and mortar

Needles needles lie broken
In the city park
Viking dreams awoken

Morbid silence
All now still
Exhale, inhale the dark
Soul
Town
Her face composed
Only a solom frown



NOTE
I cannot post any utube link at the moment, our computer has crashed two times and utube is known to be very tricky so I cannot download any of that, other pcs I use in public places do not allow down loads so cest la vie

Thank you all for these great entries! Keep them coming.  

Mourganna, I will not be judging until the comp is over, so edit as you wish. I can't wait for the youtube link as well!

Anyone else thinking to provide a youtube link? C'mon, step it up, you lot are more than capable.

Atakti said:Thank you all for these great entries! Keep them coming.  

Mourganna, I will not be judging until the comp is over, so edit as you wish. I can't wait for the youtube link as well!

Anyone else thinking to provide a youtube link? C'mon, step it up, you lot are more than capable.

Later...maybe

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/03/13/3325963.htm


"Mafia Paradise of a University."



It was a small town in the darkened and abysmal shadow of a huge menacingly corrupt University.
The figureheads that controlled the flow of money and called all the shots.
Had no interests' in the educational fulfillment of the student body solely to entertain them into pits of
self destruction.  
For unknowingly the mob that ran the town ran this University as well.
Playing both sides of the fence.  Paying the cops off to either look the other way or join in with continual
bonus payoffs.  

But this decadence was only the tip of a greater ice berg.  Just hiding below the murky black surface.
The reactor was leaking into the lower valley where the
farmers struggled with what little they could make.

And the fat cat mafia lawyers always reinforcing a firewall.  From environmental negligence.

For even the the local mafia boss of the town had the state judge in his back pocket!!  The ultimate get out of anything FREE card.  When that one night when the feds came to close down one of his local clubs.  

So the paper said he was finally off the streets.  But to this day I see him walking out of his local eatery.
Well dressed and well fed.  For his children took the fall for their old man so it would be yet another day.  In this darkened City Mafia Paradise of a University.  

http://issuu.com/dailyathenaeum/docs/20132404

One of many of his restaurant's and clubs
within the city and around the University.

West Side

A crackhead
A junkie
A whore
Fiends of every kind
conniving for more

Crooked politicians
Drug dealing cops
Handing out beat downs
for dead tail light stops

Not a place for fags and Sallys
Pistol whippings in the alleys
Young black men line the streets
Selling their white powdered treats

Streetwalkers
Drunks
and Lords of Vice
who won’t think twice
about life
or your wife

Soulless bastards
riddle the streets
Empty eyes
become harder to read

Kids caught in the crossfire
bleeding on pavement
The cops ignore it
they have an arrangement
with a street boss
who want’s more territory
fiending for more of
the gang ghetto glory

At the end of the day
if you’re lying in bed
you’re grateful if
your pals are not dead
You nod off to sleep
with a snort from a friend
while wondering
if it will ever end

Gun shots serve
as your morning alarm
No roosters here
on the criminal farm

Thank you vortexman  and Gemini for your entries!

(Gemini, glad to see you found the comp... if you think any other poet would be interested, point them this way.)