A Poem About Urban Moscow
Negative
A short walk from Paveletskaya,
I try to snap a picture of a new office
tower shimmering hard in the frigid sun,
its stone steps chapped from the cold.
It always seems impossible
to fit anything in this town within a frame,
to step away far enough to wrap
your eyes around it all,
the hulking brownstone memorials to an idea,
the crumbling kiosks bursting at the seams with
bottles and blinis, the thin young women negotiating
too deep potholes or three hour deals in five inch heels.
I get as much glass obelisk as I can and click
it for myself, a white-haired woman selling red
plastic toys from a broken bit of curb reflects
from within the otherwise faceless crowd.
Comments
i like the picture idea very much, it is a nice way to highlight the complexity and duality of a big city like Moscow, just like the brown (or is it red?) stone memorial
- AUTHOR
Cheers, Valleypoet. It is true that Moscow can be frustrating in a few ways and some of it is just mind-blowing...good and bad. But it is all very striking.
This poem expresses a frustration that I imagine photographers encounter frequently, particularly when it comes to photographing city centres. I guess that when there is so much hustle and bustle, you must decide if the picture does itself justice as it is, or does it need to include more within the frame. Your poem offers some very astute observations of city centre life. A big vote up, awesome and shared:-))
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