The Old Street

A Poem by Jordan Madrid

Dirty dusty black feet
Stained by asphalt
Burned sooty
Below an angry Texas sun

Ashy cracked skinned knees
Shaded the color of concrete
Contrasted sweetly
Scars of activity in the streets

A Pebbled Black Ocean
Scorched beach of broken glass
Vagrant's treasure
Preventing all barefoot pleasures

Air, sticky in the lungs
Red faced running through the breeze
A Naive joys thrives
Fashioned on the cusp of summer

A Rickety Hovel
Buried deep in the brush
Deliciously Dangerous
Riddled with those red iron thorns

A malevolent Cerberus
Braying against a steel wrought cage
Defines the borders
Bringing the only chill of summer

The old street
Animated with youthful eyes
Sparks vibrantly
Setting fire to a lazy dream

A shout cracks the breeze
Giving closure to the day
Maternal authority
Seldom questioned on this street

© 2009 Jordan Madrid

My Review

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Reviews

Hollywood

Your details are perfect. This poem has given alot of credit to 'the old street'. :]

Posted 14 Years Ago

Jon Gary Frost

I loved this piece. I have known this sort of place in my past and you bring it to life. The "maternal authority" that is "seldom questioned" was my favorite image in this one. Sounds like the type of mom that would whip you with a shoe.

you nailed this one.

Posted 15 Years Ago

Dianah

You have brought so much life into the old street. A fascinating portait

'A Pebbled Black Ocean
Scorched beach of broken glass
Vagrant's treasure
Preventing all barefoot pleasures'

Probably my favourite stanza, although this poem is full of wonderful images. I love the way you close the poem too.

'Maternal authority
Seldom questioned on this street'

Posted 15 Years Ago

Sean Allen

Yes Lara is right, the poem is singing.
As I read it it immediately had the feel of "Brooklyn Roads" a song I love.
congratulations on a splendid poem.

Posted 15 Years Ago

John McGrael

this poem....
speaks to me on so many levels
you have no idea

first off the whole thing taking place under an "angry texas sun"...

The old street
Animated with youthful eyes
Sparks vibrantly
Setting fire to a lazy dream

that stanza... the line "setting fire to a lazy dream"... wow

this really speaks to me mostly though... because my stepmom lives with my dad in texas, my stepmom came into my life when i was 9 years old, that is when i moved to atlanta
my stepmom is the cause for all my sadness all my anger all my depression all those bad things that have lead me to writing as an outlet
and all those bad things took place under an angry texas sun
wow

Posted 15 Years Ago

Gandré

I have been asked – and so I would like to explain why I’ve chosen this poem to be the best one of 163 poems.

This poem is breathing life, the poet was able to breathe life into this “old street”; there is also a wonderful ambiguity at the end of the poem “Maternal authority
Seldom questioned on this street”. I love kind of perfect humble ambiguity in poetry! So this old street made me feel compassion, that’s what I believe – that everything around us is alive and dancing in its smallest particles atoms and molecules and he said it his way.

Then when I read this poem – it is singing… it is wonderfully rhythmically playing, the words not only create one image after another in sequence, they “sing”:

“Scorched beach of broken glass
Vagrant's treasure
Preventing all barefoot pleasures

Air, sticky in the lungs
Red faced running through the breeze
A Naive joys thrives
Fashioned on the cusp of summer

A Rickety Hovel
Buried deep in the brush “

-------this part was just ringing!

And how successful to begin a poem this way… It made me to want to stay in this feeling, and read, read, read. It was going like …. tickety-tick, tickety-tick.. And, it was not clich�! I am tired of the endless repetitions of some old poet masters, or even … one writer – from another one… I wanted some unique writing and in the same moment I wanted to read something what gives me soo much that I want to return and read again! This is in my opinion what a great poem should be like, it’s one that makes us to come back…offering an innate quality of a deep feeling, poem perhaps, everyone can relate to.
I didn’t desire to read a poem full of extreme strong but incongruent images which would make feel like I’m reading kind of pretence or a poem self-serving to catch attention without life in it.. I wanted to read life caught inside a poem and I wanted it to be so good that it would to remember it. I compared it not deliberately to my favorite poem (you can read it in my BIO on my profile), it had certain sadness and I adored this.

There are poems – like.. so that I think, “it doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t achieve anything, we have already have been there….and it goes nowhere…. “ and I also wrote them from time to time… but we learnt and that’s why I wanted to choose The Poem ….but there are lots of people extremely original – “who don’t care”, they write with an ease and humbleness and one can feel it, and I love their poetry, one can even ‘zense’ (sense) their attitude. This is what I like… Of course, I speak only for me, for my choices and my contest…

Posted 15 Years Ago

I have been asked – and so I would like to explain why I’ve chosen this poem to be the best one of 163 poems.

This poem is breathing life, the poet was able to breathe life into this “old street”; there is also a wonderful ambiguity at the end of the poem “Maternal authority 
Seldom questioned on this street”. I love kind of perfect humble ambiguity in poetry! So this old street made me feel compassion, that’s what I believe – that everything around us is alive and dancing in its smallest particles atoms and molecules and he said it his way.

Then when I read this poem – it is  singing… it is wonderfully rhythmically playing, the words not only create one image after another in sequence, they “sing”:

“Scorched beach of broken glass 
Vagrant's treasure 
Preventing all barefoot pleasures

Air, sticky in the lungs 
Red faced running through the breeze 
A Naive joys thrives 
Fashioned on the cusp of summer

A Rickety Hovel 
Buried deep in the brush “

-------this part was just ringing!

And how successful to begin a poem this way… It made me to want to stay in this feeling, and read, read, read. It was going like …. tickety-tick, tickety-tick.. And, it was not clich�! I am tired of the endless repetitions of some old poet masters, or even … one writer – from another one… I wanted some unique writing and in the same moment I wanted to read something what gives me soo much that I want to return and read again! This is in my opinion what a great poem should be like, it’s one that makes us to come back…offering an innate quality of a deep feeling, poem perhaps, everyone can relate to. 
I didn’t desire to read a poem full of extreme strong but incongruent images which would make feel like I’m reading kind of pretence or a poem self-serving to catch attention without life in it..  I wanted to read life caught inside a poem and I wanted it to be so good that it would to remember it. I compared it not deliberately to my favorite poem (you can read it in my BIO on my profile), it had certain sadness and I adored this.

There are poems – like.. so that I think, “it doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t achieve anything, we have already have been there….and it goes nowhere…. “ and I also wrote them from time to time… but we learnt and that’s why I wanted to choose The Poem ….but there are lots of people extremely original – “who don’t care”, they write with an ease and humbleness and one can feel it, and I love their poetry, one can even ‘zense’ (sense) their attitude. This is what I like… Of course, I speak only for me, for my choices and my contest…

Rating /100

Melissa Kesead

Very original and full of emotion.

Posted 15 Years Ago

Gandré

I also liked this poem, it brought a certain atmosphere while reading it, with its images carrying me through the streets of your mentioned place, there is a semi-helplessness - that's what I liked about it. Kind of unknown world which made me curious. Good job!