City Streets Poem by Richard Dorrough

You sit cautiously
And carefully
Looking out from the sides
Of your windows
Curtains pulled to hide
The view from the street
Or from the windows across
And prying, telling eyes

Its a bit quiet now or As quiet
As the street can be
The loud bellows of loving husbands
The shrieks of the shrewish and foul-mouthed
The honking horns
In a hurry to go nowhere
The bebop and the hiphop
Of the resonating lowriders

Children screaming, Lovers dreaming
The sullen shadow merchants moving
Just on the edge of the alleyways
Peddling their wares
Hawking quick dreams to nowhere
The streets alive and writhing
Like to many snakes
In to small a basket

The puppet strings
Pulled by silent and unseen hands
The marionettes in a constant dance
For dominance
The skittish and uncounted
Darting from bright light to bright light
Racing for the false safety
Of a triple bolted and bared door


You know
And you all know
That soon the streets
Will be alive with the screaming red sirens
And the loud blue men
As they pound on doors with the black sticks
Asking the same demanding questions
Getting the same fearful answers

Its all of you, everyone
Stricken by the same disease
That affects the eyes and brings the blindness
And its not your fault
That the ears and the hearing are affected as well
And why do you ask then
When you know its so hard to see
And we all equally affected heard the same nothingness

Such is the city
Or my part at least
Well away and fenced from
The marbled steps made for the politicians
As soapboxes for their soothing speeches
Which always seem to start with” Our Fair City'
And finish with empty promises
And fond farewells