In the interest of full disclosure, I give you my poetry from back in 1996, when I was writing pretty consistently with less than brilliant results. This was the beginnings of digital publishing as far as I am concerned and I was at the cusp of it.
I leave you one of the least detestable of the lot. You can clink on the title to go to the website itself.
Forbes and Fifth Avenue
by
Michael Gallagher
AKA Ode to Pittsburgh
I stand between Forbes and Fifth Avenue
along the curb, rocking myself into oblivion
I reach for the trash and I see the sidewalk, split into sections
of shale, concrete, and newspaper clippings
Old as the city itself
My footprint is sanctimonious
My footprint is simply continuation
of the men and women before me
Struggling to get by, and farther downtown
Perhaps to the Point
where they can feel the river
and it’s playful spray
I trace the steps of a thousand steel workers, I feel the pain of the disgruntled soldiers, I know the degradation of the prostitutes, I despise the envy of the Carnegies, and I witness the weathered face of the infant.
I wonder if they stood here and stared at the cracks in the sidewalk
I wonder if it offered them the same reprieve it offers me
I wonder if they praised anything that let them escape from the smog
and the filth
and the screetching whistle
that reluctantly brought in the laboring work day
I can hear them counting the money that is never enough
or the cumbersome family
or the personal luxuries
I then retire
to the PAT
out to Mount Washington and wait for the sunset to cover
up all my questions and my lack of answers
beautiful, mikeystede