For The City That Nearly Broke Me

This poem is about honesty – but more than honesty it’s about recognition. Recognizing the city as vibrant, the city as landscape, and the city as watcher, as somehow a part of all the shit that is going on in the world, or in the life of the speaker, at any given moment. To write this poem you have to imagine that the city knows what you’re going to say before you say it. That the city is the little cousin of god.

The poem is an address, direct address to the city, and the city goes unnamed. The poet is writing to particulars, and juxtaposing the private moments with a public awareness – that is, falling out of love with your woman is no longer private when the very sidewalks play a role – when the asphalt causes the bus to jostle you into the woman beside you, who smiles for no reason. Or it’s the city, darkening an hour early, hiding from the moon right before the woman walks toward the bus stop, that knows what’s next is a car crash. Etc.

So you write a poem addressing the city, with the intent of making it more than what it is, and more than what we expect, based on the secrets, truths that we share.

Note on prompt: The idea is to also include the city in the poem – the shit that makes the city the city. Be it the music, the culture, the streets. But the poem is meant to challenge and admit what the city is while unraveling what might be a confession, a taunt, a diatribe, a pistol being pulled in the dark, etc.

Note on title: The poems can have any title you choose. Two poets: me and Barbara Jane Reyes have a series of poems with the title For the City That Nearly Broke Me. I stole it from her. If you steal it from me, well you can’t be a third generation thief.