Circus Cities
I’m a town and country person, although I have lived away from my New Hampshire woods. I have lived in a few big cities. In Pittsburg, living in the projects, we use to go into the rail yards and scoop up left over vegetables into pillowcases that the unloading machines couldn’t reach. Or, go over the stone wall to steal some grapes from a neighbor living below the projects, which I believe, let us ‘cause we never got caught. But, the most disturbing thing I witnessed, going to school in NY City, watching a dog defecating on the sidewalk. On concrete, not grass or leaves in the woods… on cement! That, I thought, was the most dehumanizing, de-animalizing consequence of our circus cities.
We don’t know we’re goofy
Until it rains
After building our house
Forgotten the roofy
ZoralinQ 
Sherry Marr
October 23, 2016 at 1:57 pm
This made me smile, over the missing roofy…..sad, too, for the poor dog who must never get to run free through the grass. Sigh.
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dsnake1
October 20, 2016 at 2:22 am
i remembered, once upon a time, we scooped up leftover vegetables from baskets for our meals too. and pork lard was free, the butchers let us have them. and the dogs, ah, they are mostly strays and they did their business anywhere. that was the big city for us then…
thanks, friend, for these memories. 🙂
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Bodhirose
October 19, 2016 at 12:03 pm
Thanks for the glimpse into your upbringing and how you would retrieve vegetables that had fallen aside for your family’s use. Animals will poop anywhere, I don’t think they give much thought as to whether the area available is green or concrete!
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mother wintermoon
October 19, 2016 at 1:50 am
Raw, real and powerful! I’ve seen the dog poop on big city cement before, as well as human excrement, which is even more disturbing. Circus cities…such an apt, sad and brilliant phrase! Excellent imagery.
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Bryan Ens
October 19, 2016 at 12:19 am
Even cities should have ample green spaces. So much concrete is barbaric.
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ZQ
October 18, 2016 at 4:04 pm
Yes, I understand. But, for a country boy, plastic is an answer to it that dissolves natural instinct, placing us in an evolution between humans needs and the animals, [wild life] to succumb to our “progress” is not the balance we should seek… still not right… but, understood.
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Victoria C. Slotto
October 18, 2016 at 12:59 pm
Concrete–so depressing. Reminds me a bit of the few years I lived in Baltimore. Ugh.
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magicalmysticalteacher
October 18, 2016 at 12:50 pm
Things certainly are topsy-turvy in our world!
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lillian
October 18, 2016 at 11:38 am
You’ve hit upon a very “city” sight….most times here, people are walking the dog and them they put a plastic bag on their hand, stoop down and pick it up, turn the bag inside out so the poop is inside the bag and then tie the bag in a knot … and then carry the bag with them to dump it in the garbage. So which is more dehumanizing, deanimalizing? Defecating on cement or the human walking with a supply of plastic bags and becoming the pooper scooper?
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Björn Rudberg (brudberg)
October 18, 2016 at 11:07 am
This is a stunning and compassionate haibun… a dog or human, strays.
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georgeplace2013
October 18, 2016 at 9:01 am
Yes, I hate all that concrete
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Grace
October 18, 2016 at 8:19 am
It happens to stray animals and of course, when everything is in cement, it is quite de-humanizing.
Love the lightness of your short poem~
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Brian
October 18, 2016 at 7:23 am
Interesting life history. I am envisioning the vegetables in the rail yard.
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Sanaa Rizvi
October 18, 2016 at 6:22 am
“de-animalizing consequence of our circus cities.” My god, it must have been a terrible sight!
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kaykuala (@hankkaykuala)
October 18, 2016 at 1:23 am
Big City happenings are little episodes but glaringly intimidating. One can expect such things as there are as many activities as there are people. That perhaps explains the frequency of them happening as opposed to those in the countryside.
Hank
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purplepeninportland
October 17, 2016 at 11:29 pm
I am laughing! This never would have caught my attention, as I saw it all the time.
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kanzensakura
October 17, 2016 at 9:25 pm
Wow. I have never seen an animal defecating on cement before. You are right, it has to be one of ther most de-animalising things of which I have heard. I’ve had friends wno picked jp coal by the railroad tracks and also vegetables. The city is a hard harsh place and I do not miss ity.
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