Portsmouth Square
by spiritj
(These are the first of many ideas I have for a poem or short story about aging immigrants.)
Whose grandparents are these, who flock to Portsmouth
Square?
Elderly congregants
like scavenger pigeons
encircle boxes
overturned
Mis-matched parkas and fingerless gloves
scant defense
from bitter age
in this city
Arthritic joints perch on concrete
most uncivilly engineered—
chill as the tomb
of a far-flung sea-port Sunday afternoon
Weathered faces and hands
fingers strain to fan
a palm full of cards
No money for tea,
private rooms
or furniture,
books,
or TV.
But rough welcome
to the fellowship
of survivors from Middle Kingdom,
now holding court on Gold Mountain.
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I love it. Especially the
I love it. Especially the reference to Gold Mountain, reminding me of the empty promise that whispered across an ocean.Â
My only criticism is that I’ve been to the square, and some of the features there added as much to the sense of it as the people. I think some external context could add even more richness to the descriptions of these people, more poignancy to the "not what it was claimed to be, but could be worse" fatalism I perceived.
 However, this is not meant to take away from my original statement that this is very well done.
I love this also, spas.
I love this also, spas. I’d like to see more of your poetry.
I tried changing some of the verb tenses in my head, like perched instead of perch. Trying playing around with that.
Yeah, that’s it.
It’s Spiritj, WD.Â
It’s Spiritj, WD. Not Spas.
Wow. That means my brain is
Wow. That means my brain is so used to seeing spas write and not spiritj, hint hint, and that I’ve not been paying much attention to the psoters. Apologizes, spiritj. Â
Yeah, that’s it.
Thanks for reading, Icon and WD
I’ve been so busy the past year that I seldom get time to concentrate on writing for the sheer fun of it! I have a lot of ideas on this topic, and would like to extend it.
It could be done in a short story, but poetry is much more efficient and concrete, particularly when you’re short on time <g> Wish I had a video-cam to upload movies—I often think in visuals, and end up searching for words to convey them…Also it can be frustrating not to have sufficient time to peruse the thesaurus or dictionary for just the right word (I wrote this draft online.)
Thesaurus
Besides dictionary.com, which may or may not be useful, I always keep a bookmark of http://thesaurus.reference.com/ handy to be clicked on. It allows me to be picky with my words. I may not agree with it, but I can usually find what I’m looking for.Â