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Open Poetry #17
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Glenn Logan
Member
since 2001-10-10
Posts 111
Virginia

0 posted 2001-12-14 10:50 AM



   Jersey City - armpit of the nation?

   Not exactly - not really - but grungy
   enough to fool the outsider
   into thinking it so - to accept
   prejudice and slander for thought.

   Jersey City - facing Miss Liberty's backside,
   facing too its immense rival -
   too immense even to notice
   that they are rivals - New York City,
   soaring upward like massed stalagmites
   in a cave of bad air - not so Jersey City -
   a spike or two here and there, but mostly just
   low buildings,
   even on the Heights,
   above the cliffs of the Palisades, a city
   spreading , glue-like,
   with asphalt roofs and asphalt streets,
   some garnished with trees -
   a sign of livability amid old buildings -
   towering old buildings that tower only because they
   have no elevators -
   only stairs for tired newsboys -
   and pregnant women - to climb laboriously
   to deliver one newspaper - perhaps two.

   City of little hope, and no dreams - city of ugly reality,
   but with a sense of humor - item, circa 1956:

   Elected county officials, each of whom
   spent $20,000 of taxpayers' money
   for their Italian marble-topped desks,
   are re-elected, returned to their offices.
   Afterward, neighbors I talked with explained their vote:

   "If we voted any new guys in,
   they'd want at least what this bunch took,
   so we'd have to pay out twice!"

   Cynical city, city of gray humor - not black -
   just sadly gray - with enough despair to say:

   "This is our reality, this
   is the way we live - the way
   we all have to live"

   - or at least the way they thought they had to live,
   in my childhood -
   and how they
   still live
   in the Jersey City of my mind.

                                                                                                    .
                                                                                                         .
   More of my poems, long and short, are posted at
http://mywebpage/netscape.com/gloganpoet/gloganpoet.html http://www.poetrypages.com/pages/glennlogan http://www.geocities.com/glennlogan/index.html


© Copyright 2001 Glenn Logan - All Rights Reserved
Startime
Member Ascendant
since 2000-10-03
Posts 5918
Canada
1 posted 2001-12-14 10:59 AM


*sigh* Life is not always pretty nor filled with only good. It is sad that we see the bad that is going on around us. Politics seems to have lots of dirty laundry to air. That is sad to me. **hugs** Take care.

Love I leave with you whether it is in your life now or yet the essense of your dreams.

Son Netier
Member
since 2001-12-11
Posts 116
The Garden State
2 posted 2001-12-14 11:10 AM


Nice view of that City, a misunderstood one at times.  But I prefer the Pines.

Bill

Corinne
Member Ascendant
since 1999-10-28
Posts 5167
state of confusion
3 posted 2001-12-14 01:53 PM


Good to see another perspective of Jersey City - enjoyed this, you gave the city character.

Corinne

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