pla-th:

at writers camp, we had to do an exercise where we were to pick a photograph and write a poem about it

i chose a photo of a forest, but although i appreciate forests, what i wrote didn’t seem very genuine. i feel far more at home in the chaos of a city, i think. so i wrote these:

(lies) Forest

Through well-wandered,

well-written woodland, and

fairy-glades, toadstool clearings

with air that smells like an underground stream,

like cold stones and rainclouds.

Through dappled clearings

and stomping grounds of elfen-folk or deer,

you dream of alleyways or high-rises –

I, of transparent greenery.

City

Complete disgusting and entrancing pile 

of fetid humanity.

Yes, we live in stacks

in boxes, and raise our children in concrete.

Yes, we travel encased in metal, down beneath the ground

along train-track veins and pumping through the arteries of our world.

We are not a machine, this city – 

we clank and crash,

crush and create, but

like a living zombie animal,

watch us puke and shit and you must believe that we

are a compressed version

of all we’ve ever been, all history.