Everyday Majestic Musings

(no images for this yet, but I'll fix that soon)

Some parts of this city I really adore,
but other parts I cannot help but deplore
for being unloved and un-cared-for eyesores
against whom the city appears to wage war.
The parts of the city where people are poor
are left to decay and avoided by tours,
neglected, abandoned, with boarded up doors,
no trees on the street, vandal tags for decor,
just pawn shops and junk food and check cashing stores.
The stark subdivisions are hard to ignore
between parts with less and the parts with much more.
So sometimes I ask myself when feeling sore,
do I love Philly as much as before?

And yet when I walk there's no end to the nice parts
away from the empty lots, garbage, and Walmart.
It feels like on each block there's some kind of fine art,
a mural, mosaic, or sculpture to impart
a vision of what we desire to be
if one day we struggle less with poverty,
a park over here shading benches with trees,
a pool over there, people swimming for free,
a cat in a windowsill naps languidly,
and thrift stores and pho shops with noodles and tea,
and strangers on dog walks nod smiling at me,
and neighborhood gardens abundant with blooms
are filling the air with sweet honey perfumes,
and parents with drinks watching children with chalk
drawing cute diagrams on the sidewalk.

I wander for months and the joy never ends,
so why am I only attached to my friends?

Is it my mentality?
My modality?
My tonality?
Duality in my capacity for vivacity?
Is it the city, or is it me?

Children's book "On Noah's Ark"
by the fountain in the park
named after our patriarch
(George Washington, not Noah, lol)
over graves without a mark.
Come and read before it's dark.

Also there's a plastic truck.
Driver probably got stuck.
Some small kid is out of luck.
It seems like a sitting duck.
Might get stepped on by a schmuck.

To the side's a monument,
wall of stone that represents
where the unknown soldiers went
from Washington's regiments
before he was president.

In the back an old man's seated
with a painting near completed.
By our stranger he is greeted,
"May I look on?" Thus entreated,
the man engages, unconceited.

Fun-filled twenty thousand feet:
vibrant toys, delightful treats.
Jellycat and Funko dolls
line FAO Schwarz's walls.

In the back a keyboard lies
on the floor, quite large in size.
Jump around or dance a jig;
play notes like Tom Hanks in Big.

Madness next to Rockefeller,
staff all giving demonstrations.
Oh, look, this one's a best seller,
Barbie's Dream Deluxe Gas Station.