Abstract Associations #007
A conversation in poetic verses
City of Needles -
I cannot walk the park and miss its crop of needles. I cannot reach for fish behind glass without scales impaling my wrists. Those trees I admired, the ones syringe-like in winter. Yes, needles.
When I pick up refuse, I wear impermeable gloves. When I trim, my blades dull on spiny metals. I removed a pin from a red bird’s wing, a bird not originally red. Towers rain showers of powder.
There is snow on the grass in May. A child was taken to the infirmary having tried to taste falling flakes. So many luxury cars with tires that never wear flat. So many heals and ankles reinforced with steel.
And iron. The iron red of a woman’s lips; the iron red under a man’s eyes. Iron red foliage on a maple in the park. Today, I received a contact high when I admired a spruce. The tree had ankles reinforced with steel.
The mayor is calm. He says we’re getting along. Workers work longer shifts, allowed to collect time and a half. There is a rust iron redness in their spines. There is a rust from the grindstone on their shoulders.
The plows come out in May and remove all the flowers. The operators see stars. A kinglet is crowned monarch. Somehow, so many can pay the inflated rent. People watch films while cyber trucks drive them to work.
©2025 Jeremy Nathan Marks
[The Reply]
Concrete Cordillera - Jozef Cain
her smiling eyes, behind dirt and grey
tucked away into yesteryears jacket,
is hope; and i walk between skyscrapers,
and neglected community gardens
where the smell of piss, and sulfur
infiltrate my nostrils,
transmuatating my breath
into something toxic.
though the sound of hope
in the voice of that woman,
with smiling eyes, will linger longer.
she was seated between whores,
and pushers, and tricks, and gangsters;
a beacon of light in the city's snare,
which she beats like a salish drum.
not consumed by the chaos;
rather a nail for the tether
of hope, and light, and good.
her roots pierce beneath
the concrete, where she rests;
her smile, and voice, remind me
of the antidote to my toxic breath.
the salty wind, of the harbour,
slowly meets the iron fog,
and the asphalt becomes
full of brackish air; i halt my stride,
take a deep breath, before continuing
my journey where the tether
leads: St. Paul's ICU.
yet, the cordillera
beyond the concrete,
through the window,
reminds me of the
native woman's eyes,
...and hope.
This dialectic of decay & hope, in such deep and heavy texture, made me sit up and read again. Putting across urban alchemy.
Thank you 🙏
Needles to my heart with adrenaline start and then finishes with a dart in the paths taken to I C U, where blood is drawn to become rusty red wreckage yet survival will begin against the walls that draw words into pictures that have a thousand more miles to travel for an answer.