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.

My Town on Seven Hills

Like Moscow, Istanbul and Rome
my town is built on seven hills.
At the top of the tallest of them all,
my home stands on the thin stilts.

I wake up every morning
to the clinking glass and wind
wheezing under the floor.
I open my windows.

Sunbeams
bounce from the roof tops
and play with the weather vanes.
They run through the grapes
from the neighboring slopes.
They run in my veins.

Giving the town transparent glow,
they run in the narrow
hunched backs of the streets,
the streets to mislead and entice,

where any sidewalk may end
in a vertical drop or stop on the dome
with a flower garden on top
right around the cross.

My four-dimensional town
with time axis compressed
and vertical one blown out,
I am drawn to its geometrical forms,
polyhedrons, plains, and lines.

And when I meet occasional strangers
enchanted head over heels
I let them build their own house
on one of the seven hills.

Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
How was my language use?
Last few words: 
1. Capitol Hill 2. Meridian Hill 3. Floral Hills 4. Forest Hills 5. Hillbrook 6. Hillcrest 7. Knox Hill
Editing stage: 

Comments

You had promised to write about the urban life...you have delivered the promise by creating a wonderful landscape from a Poet's perspective. There are so many good lines which I won't mention because it would be like reproducing more than half of your verses and what is written in between cannot be reproduced but only imagined and perceived.

a pleasure read and a lesson too on how to create a painting of a house atop one of the seven hills. Makes me wonder if you write with a brush
............................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Dear Raj,
I am glad you mentioned a brush. The poem was inspired by Escher's graphics, one of the most brilliant artists of the last century.

IRiz

author comment

Well IRiz... good to know what inspired you to pick up your brush to create this landscape poem...it reflects of humility which is a quality of an artist to owe it to the source of his/her inspiration. Thanks to your creative skills, I could see the picture painted in pastel colors of your choice....

since you have created this landscape from the bird's eye view atop a precipice of the seven hills, I wonder if you had treated readers to the view of the valleys. Just a thought.

keep painting mad girl..
........................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Hope I have not offended you by calling you mad girl. it was intended in a good way. Apologies if you have thought it otherwise.
...................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Hi Raj,
No no no not offended,
Your words are warm and it is a real treat for me. I was distracted by something and did not answered but ment to say, thank you.

IRiz

author comment

Good to know that IRiz

I said so because only a mad girl sees sunbeams run through the grapes from the neighboring slopes.
and then run in her veins .....and many things [verses] like that . :)
........................................................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Hahaha, but
think about how light goes through a grape, lighting it up like a lantern!
And then when you open your heart to the sun, don't you feel the sunbeems penetrate your skin and run in your blood?
Or maybe you know how some wines preserve
the memory of their sunny days,
take it through the long and dark
fermenting process and spark
it back from the glass?
And where it all ends? In your veins again, dissolved in your blood.

IRiz

author comment

another mad thought...

how some wines preserve
the memory of their sunny days,
take it through the long and dark
fermenting process and spark
it back from the glass

I wouldn't mind getting insane to be able to look at these things the way you do..I now know how to get insane...by just keeping on reading you poems...:)
...........................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Insanity in this case could be contagious

IRiz

author comment

believe me...if i can write half as good and mystifying as you do I won't mind at all being smitten by this contagious bug..
....................................................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

I like your poetry very much; especially short poems because there you only keep words that are truly dear to you. I think you are still growing. I believe I noticed that your later poems are more unique, more yours. (If you allow me such use of words.) How long have you being writing?

IRiz

author comment

for your kind words. Coming from the accomplished poets like you they mean a lot and keep inspiring me to evolve in my hunger for continual improvement. I have been here on and off for about seven years with spells when I have been away due to work responsibilities. I do realize that I haven't accomplished much over these years. You are right...I am still growing and know that I am on a learning curve...reading poems from the likes of you certainly helps in the learning process...

warmly...

raj (sublime_ocean)

Thank you for reading!

IRiz

author comment

"Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light"
and
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."
Jack Kerouac

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

I like the poem. It so reminds me of the "Triggering Town" philosophy of poetry by Richard Hugo who suggests the poet in our modern day must create his own town, out of his imagination, and live in that town in his writing. With this new freedom of inventing places, faces, events in which the surreal can connect with the real as the reader shares the new landscape.
The language and narrative work perfectly within that town, your town.

Although many cities may have several hills, we only think of Rome in that way, and I did not prefer the opening line. It stopped me saying "really, I didn't know that. I have been in both and never heard that mentioned.." as so was distracted from what very quickly evolves on its own.. So I would
just stick with the comparison to Rome...
..

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

What an interesting comment! Thank you very much. How about my word order? Am I clear?

Three cities are main contributes to my cultural background. They are connected by deep cultural rootes and symbolize the spread of ideas from West the East. The only thing I would consider changing is replacing Istanbul by its former name, Constantinople. But it is too long.

IRiz

author comment

the idea flows nicely, comfortably.

Of the 3 cities, might be so but not so associated to the general reader, so for me just looked at it like a coincidence of cities with 7 hills...maybe add small thought to advise the reader that you have lives associated with these places...
Lastly , my first mentor in poetry in a creative writing class in 1967 said to me, "Never begin a poem with Like or And"....So I'm just passing it on...

Looking forward to meeting more people and places in your town!

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

Thank you

IRiz

author comment

Very vivid, i am almost touching the thing described. Thanks for inviting me in to view your town, its an intriguing place.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

Hello Tyro,
Thank you for visiting!
Have a nice holiday.

IRiz

author comment

I'd rather say

(They) warm memories run in my vein(s)
which drives me mostly/intensely insane

Hold on tight, insanity epidemic!!!

IRiz

author comment

Iriz you to me show
yes I may go
if not grow

Jess and MarkL,
Thank you for your comments.
The beat generation is somewhat related to the Russian wave of anti-Soviet poets. Among them Brodsky, he was kicked out from mother Russia and started writing in English.
I am still to learn his American period, his Russian poems are genious
and another example of lost in translation treasure. Something I might try to fix one day if I am strong enough!

IRiz

author comment

when I was 12.
That line still makes me shiver-
If a hundred people are beating up a man
I will never make a hundred and one.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Thank you for the line. Translation is very good.
I have to revisit the poet. He was more flexible politically in Soviet Russia and I ignored him mostly for that.

IRiz

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