OASIS #1
There's a place in every city not even the best maps show.
Where the going's always “easy” and the pace is always “slow”
These places lack the pressure of commercial stress and strife.
They provide the simpler pleasure of a calmer sort of life.
It's no use asking the locals; most folk just pass them by.
If you really want to find them, you really mustn't try.
Just take your time and wander. It may take quite a while.
But you'll find it worth the effort when you relax and start to smile
And when you've finally found it; you won't need a special sign.
You'll know and you'll be happy. Until then the secret's MINE.
Forward to Oasis #2 allpoetry.com/poems/1320855
Forward to Oasis #3 allpoetry.com/edit/1320863
Author notes
When we had the Foot and Mouth epidemic in the UK I spent a lot of time walking in Cities instead of the countryside.
This was actually written at rush hour sat in Dublin's Garden of Remembrance, just a couple of hundred yards from Parnell's Statue in O'Connell Street and I was completely alone. I have found that there are places like that in most cities I have walked in.
Written August 12th, 2002
In a list
A contest entry
- Trilogy time by Wanabat.
500 points, ended October 27, 2006, 25 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 17 of 17
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and you are right!
although the noise and hub-a-bub of cities not to mention the air quality can never equal those wide-open spaces that nature provides ... there are some gems that one can find in a city by wandering about! This is a good poem that has a nice cadence as well as rhyme. Very good sharing! joy
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I have only failed to come up with somewhere similar in one city since writing this. I won't tell you which since I am going to go back and 'wander' again.
Jim
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This is my favourite too. Partly because it was the first and partly because it encapsulates something I have found to be true.
Yes they are often memorials but in Lancaster for example it is a small farm a couple of minutes from the city hall and in Hull it is a concreted over dock basin.
I do like to wander round memorial gardens / cemetries etc both reading inscriptions but also looking at the grave architecture which has a language and symbolism all of its own. Or did until the PC brigade started introducing rules and regulations to the dead.
Thanks for reading all three pieces and for your welcome comments and applause.
Jim
Edited on Oct 05, 9:05 because ''. -
I too have a habit of wandering round places that others seem to give a miss Could be because mainly they are cemeteries Such peace and tranquility there and so many stories written on the tombstones.With most locals it is just the one visit .I love this one I have read all three an have to admit to a being drawn into this one the most Not to decry the others as each has its own place in this trilogy All the best in the contest
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Yes this was a great discovery (for me) and I just had to record it. I still roam around when I visit new towns and am rarely disappointed. There is often a pleasant Oasis to be found and enjoyed. It seems this is true in many countries thank heavens.
However occasionally it's not as pleasant as the other poems in this series indicate.
Jim -
Excellant and fun
Very well done, indeed. You are quite correct, and one just usually stumbles across them quite unexpectedly. Those kind of places are a true delight. -
Very true – there are many backwaters that get missed by the tourist and local alike… I have to say though, I still prefer the seaside or countryside – although of course it is far less inhabited here!
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Thanks for the analysis. Your suggestion for lines 1 and 2 would work but the period at the end of line 2 is a must for me. When read aloud, as much of my writing is, there is a distinct seperation here. That is also the reason for the quotation marks, they should be said with emphasis.
Stress and strife are not, in my opinion, the same. Stress is what causes strife, one is passive the other active.
The final exclamation point is, as you indicate, deleteable since the emphasis here has been given by the capitalisation.
I had to look up enjambment. I agree my work is littered with it. Probably because my notebook is not wide enough to write everything as couplets so I split lines into quatrains. I don't consciously try to write in heroic couplets or iambic pentametre etc. I just write what sound good in my mind.
I appreciate your taking the time to criticise in this positive way.
Jim S -
I liked much of this poem written in rhyming quatrains. Lines are tight, but at places such as L1 S1 I don't get that tension to warrant an enjambment. I would put a comma after L1 and delete "that" from L2 and replace that full stop with a comma ! It is bit telly telly at this moment. Don't see any special reason for those double quotes! In the next quatrain "stress and strife" suggest same thing, why not trim it! But then those two syllables add flesh, gives a better metrical feel...perhaps got the idea...Do you really need that exclamation at the end of last quatrain!
D -
Thanks for your comment and for pointing out the flaw. Actually it was a typo. My intention was maps not map.
I have fixed it for other viewers. Thanks for your help.
Jim S -
I have never heard of this "Foot & Mouth" epidemic, but then again I live somewhere it has never been documented--at least not so far.
This is a smooth, flowing write which works well with rhymes. However, there is one small grammatical error I spotted in your first stanza. "Show" is used in plural form, whereas the rest of the stanza is written in the singular. This syntax error can easily be corrected if you say "that not even the best map can show." That will change the inflection of the verb show and put it back in context with the rest of the poem.
This sounds like a good suggestion to travelers, though--everyone needs a break.
Thanks also for your comment to "Surrender." It's a poem actually written back in 2002, when I actually had inspiration for love and erotic poems. I knew that rhyme you pointed out didn't sit well either--I never bothered to correct it, though, since after I post a poem to the website I rarely (if ever) edit it. But thanks for the suggestion.
Many blessings,
Raven Aurora
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Thanks for the comment Emerald13. When you find it, it's yours. Don't tell anyone or it's not special anymore!
BTW Oasis #2 and #3 are now available
Jim S
Edited on Jun 13, 12:21 because ''. -
very calming and love the humour ... looking forward to finding that place of yours ... curious ! >>>> EM
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Thank you for your comment. The mobile phone thing has also struck me and I have a future offering already penned in my ditty-bag on this topic.
JS -
So glad to have come across your work. Increasingly I have come to value the simplicity you speak of far more than money. Around me daily I see people always in a hurry and seemingly unable to be anywhere without a cell phone attached to the ear, apparently as afraid of being alone with their own thoughts as of finding out that they have advanced cancer. When I come across a place like you describe I feel as if I'd found buried treasure. Glad to have found your work.
Edited on Jun 12, 2:21 p.m. because ''. -
Thank you surfergirl
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Foot & Mouth epidemic????? Yikes!!!!
This is a very well done poem! Great visuals! Something I hadn't given much thought to before. Bravo!
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