Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

H2O Recycled

She wipes garish makeup from her lips
because she's stoned,
a loner in the silent metropolis.
She flushes me down fauces,
labyrinths man conceals
in a maze of urban paradoxes,
forgetful of my sacred heritage.

Unreal age, rush and noise of city days:
Mums and lunch-hour dawdlers
unroll synthetic mats on grass
to broil their skin with U.V. rays,
sacrificial beasts on beer-can altars.

I’d not go willingly into bowels
of doomed cities, palaces, taverns.
Gravity pulls me down hollows,
now and then a glimpse of sidewalks
above, of homeless snoring
on thresholds, legs curled mindlessly
over iron gratings.
I spy a yellowish glow: a wedding-ring. Yours?
Your mascara was streaked with tears.

Flowing past tattered socks, foul jeans,
smegma of mangy bodies, cats,
I hear squeals of mating rats
slinking in gutters, climbing and falling
swish swish swish
into my sludge to reach the sea.

A shoe-sole gasps, taps
my oily edge, and is toppled over by a toad.
Chemically treated, H2O recycle mode,
I'm dumped in reservoirs and left to brew.
Breezy dawns spell hope,
I swirl into realms of heavenly hues.
Another Sisyphus, I must start over,
pushing not a rock but mammoth turbines
for city lights and miracles of your tap water.

Review Request (Intensity): 
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Last few words: 
All aspects. I only hope readers realize that the water is the main protagonist. If unclear, please help. Tx
Editing stage: 
Contest: 

Comments

to say the least! I don't know, I read your comments at the end and confirmed that it is water. I think I would leave it as is. I do believe that anyone that needs a map or guide to see that it is; would have trouble deciphering the rest of the poem and maybe not understand it anyway. ~ Geezer.
.

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

Thank you, Mark. So glad you like it. I hope others understand it. It has been nominated and I believe published, but I don't remember where.Is that OK?

*
*
*
"My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies; fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die, I can fly, my friends.” – Freddie Mercury

author comment

The Geezer. LoL

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

It is I? Are you water?

*
*
*
"My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies; fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die, I can fly, my friends.” – Freddie Mercury

author comment
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.