The Body Politic
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By london_calling79
- 2141 reads
Beneath the empty swing of a barren pub sign,
surrounded by his own scattered fag ash,
sits, chinless, a man with more collar than neck.
Within each red and in every black stripe of tailored shirt lies
a column of smouldering plus and ashen minus.
He's looking left on a ‘look right’ kerbstone,
his face a bullet
hammered into a shining coin.
The heat and the rubbish from the street swirl,
massage his temple, move his thoughts to the muse
in your wallet.
He's sat alone,
Rodin's forgotten son,
red-braced for the banker's revolution,
a lonely thinker,
money on his mind.
Bastard Atlas holding up the world.
He's at 100 whilst I'm in reverse,
stood there,
with the generations of fag ends at his feet.
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Comments
This is so beautiful in spite
This is so beautiful in spite of its tragic elements. You have a real knack of exposing the aesthetics of the ordinary or "perceived" unsavoury.
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I do like this a lot, my only
I do like this a lot, my only problem is with "he's sat" rather than "he sits"...maybe I'm just out of date, forgive me if that's the case. Otherwise, a great poem.
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There's quite a lot I can
There's quite a lot I can understand and appreciate here, but there are a number of points where I lose you - in particular the first two lines of the second verse, I'm lost - is there metaphor here, as in the title? Rhiannon
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Thanks, thought there must be
Thanks, thought there must be something like that, but didn't get there! Rhiannon
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