Paterson City Hall
Hard by the live chicken market
sits a lumpish copy
of the Lyon city hall.
It’s sidewalk-side toilets
for a passerby’s needs
have white entrance steps
marred with grime and pee.
For the upstairs bathrooms
you have to be somebody
to see varnished wood, medallions,
bronze banisters, gilded marquetry
and the window-ledge tomes
containing written-up lives
against the light held at bay
by unwashed panes.
About this poem
It’s about what the title says: the city hall in Paterson, New Jersey.
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Written on February 07, 1995
Submitted by davidtrans123 on May 12, 2023
- 21 sec read
- 57 Views
Quick analysis:
| Scheme | ABCDEFBGBHIJKLM |
|---|---|
| Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
| Characters | 410 |
| Words | 72 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 15 |
1 fan
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"Paterson City Hall" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/161226/paterson-city-hall>.
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