Thank you, Brock. I never fully embraced being a city person and sometimes wonder about how urban areas require us to live. It's possible there may be a limit to how much safety or convenience we should adopt.
I was the same throughout most of my childhood and young adult life growing up in Northern Ontario. I was raised in a village of five hundred people. The prevailing attitude was that cities were hostile places. Since, I've lived in only big cities, as an adult: Seoul, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City,) Hanoi, Beijing, Guangzhou, Bangkok, Hong Kong . . . I loathe our contemporary safety-ism. Hanoi, Beijing and Guangzhou are different because they're both effectively run as Communist police states. Same with Guangzhou - which was the first Asian city I ever drove a car in. It freaked me out, being ticketed by these robot speed cameras, with a fine arriving in a text on my phone.
Despite the strong Soviet overtones in imagery, suggesting something quite different, Hanoi is actually the opposite on the ground, particularly in terms of the images and scenes you are suggesting. I do not like Toronto? Your poem makes me think of Toronto: shiny airport suitcase towers. Hanoi IS the capital but no one here wears helmets on their motorbikes. No one waits for the light to turn green. It just happens, magically. I find that there is something almost divine about that. Just yesterday, I had to break really fast, and I skidded and fell over on my bike. What's amazing is that people will stop. EVERY SINGLE TIME - to help, and to drive you home or to the hospital, and to even walk your bike to a mechanic's.
"Medieval times on motorbikes" is used commonly in foreign travel guides. I find that a bit degrading but it does make me think of that much harder time: was it really that much harder SOCIALLY, in new cities like London or Florence? I think no. I think safteyism removes culpability. That is the only purpose for it. It's a fraudster.
Cities are better the more responsibility people bear towards each other in them, I find. That's even true in Tokyo - the biggest and quietest of cities.
Very interesting experiences, and makes for quite a comparison! I grew up around and neighbored to Amish communities: horses & buggies, houses with candles instead of lights, that sort of thing. But Toronto wasn't that far off; I ended up living in DC for a few years. It was so impersonal. Help you up? People trapped in the metro doors get completely ignored, it's gross.
I found Sydney far better. I think they're newer to being that large; there was still in the suburban areas a minor sense of community.
Beautiful poem and take on the Lot prompt. I really like this.
Thank you, Brock. I never fully embraced being a city person and sometimes wonder about how urban areas require us to live. It's possible there may be a limit to how much safety or convenience we should adopt.
I was the same throughout most of my childhood and young adult life growing up in Northern Ontario. I was raised in a village of five hundred people. The prevailing attitude was that cities were hostile places. Since, I've lived in only big cities, as an adult: Seoul, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City,) Hanoi, Beijing, Guangzhou, Bangkok, Hong Kong . . . I loathe our contemporary safety-ism. Hanoi, Beijing and Guangzhou are different because they're both effectively run as Communist police states. Same with Guangzhou - which was the first Asian city I ever drove a car in. It freaked me out, being ticketed by these robot speed cameras, with a fine arriving in a text on my phone.
Despite the strong Soviet overtones in imagery, suggesting something quite different, Hanoi is actually the opposite on the ground, particularly in terms of the images and scenes you are suggesting. I do not like Toronto? Your poem makes me think of Toronto: shiny airport suitcase towers. Hanoi IS the capital but no one here wears helmets on their motorbikes. No one waits for the light to turn green. It just happens, magically. I find that there is something almost divine about that. Just yesterday, I had to break really fast, and I skidded and fell over on my bike. What's amazing is that people will stop. EVERY SINGLE TIME - to help, and to drive you home or to the hospital, and to even walk your bike to a mechanic's.
"Medieval times on motorbikes" is used commonly in foreign travel guides. I find that a bit degrading but it does make me think of that much harder time: was it really that much harder SOCIALLY, in new cities like London or Florence? I think no. I think safteyism removes culpability. That is the only purpose for it. It's a fraudster.
Cities are better the more responsibility people bear towards each other in them, I find. That's even true in Tokyo - the biggest and quietest of cities.
Very interesting experiences, and makes for quite a comparison! I grew up around and neighbored to Amish communities: horses & buggies, houses with candles instead of lights, that sort of thing. But Toronto wasn't that far off; I ended up living in DC for a few years. It was so impersonal. Help you up? People trapped in the metro doors get completely ignored, it's gross.
I found Sydney far better. I think they're newer to being that large; there was still in the suburban areas a minor sense of community.
Love this, and the photo too!
Powerful. Ozymandias at the car park
High praise indeed, thank you! I can only hope that Shelley would approve.
Cool poem!
Thanks very much!
Damn just read a second time and appreciated it even more. Really poignant and melancholy poem. Very tricky and slippery.
Really appreciate the second look! I worked on it on and off, so it provides some layers for me as well.
I *love* run-on lines in poetry. My innards vibrate in pleasure when poetry does that so effortlessly. Wordplay at its finest.
So glad you liked it! Not necessarily a deliberate choice this time but just kind of worked out that way. :)