Five o'clock

It comes all at once
as the businesses let
their employees go catch
the peak trains they can get
and the snakes of the city
sneak silently under
the feet of the tourists
who witness in wonder
The lights and the sky
and the buildings that scrape it
who can’t take it all
so they videotape it
All the noise and the cars
and the nuts who will pray
to the deaf ears of yes-men
whose hair grows more grey
with each pounding step
that they take to the train
It’s insane but
they call it a city.

And then there’s the half
that the Nikon-zoom lenses
and urban adepts
in Mercedes-Benzes
will overlook or
worse just drive right through
as they make their way
to park avenue.
The homes of the nuts
when they’re done with the show
and the kids who eat food
bought with hookers and blow
that were sold to the yes man
who “had to” remain
and subsequently
miss the five o’clock train
There isn’t much beauty or rhyme
But it’s fast and on time
So they call it a city

brilliant, i liked this very much. there were a few things that i didn't quite get- or more specifically, who's the yes man and is the use of yes 'men' correct in the first stanza? you kept the pace wonderfully, seeing that most of the sentences were quite the same size, huh, rather like an erm....... rap?
heck never mind, this captured the five a clock setting more or less and i can't find anything to complain about. i could however ask you in a passing kind of way to expand it if you can sustain the rythm. only a suggestion. well nice work, and thanks for the read.

You captured the setting true, but what are you trying to say to me, the reader?

I didn't like it much, perhaps because you're just showing us a setting, and what does it matter? (From my understanding of it.) Also, your complete lack of punctuation makes this poem a bit difficult to read.

I agree with Suzanne--while the loose structure of the poem helps convey the rushed, "insane" feeling of the city, it is difficult to read. At least include enough punctuation to guide your reader. We hate being overwhelmed like that.

I do think you had some great lines in here. Some of them were cliche, I suppose, that typical view of a city as chaotic and all that, and the conditions of poverty and unhappiness described in the second stanza. It's a little childish to go about the poem like that: Look, city, businesspeople, and it's also bad because there's crime and drugs and stuff and that really sucks. Anyway. Mix it up a little!

You also might consider including a speaker "I" in the poem. Giving the poem a more personal feel will help your reader get involved in the poem, and with a persona you can bring more emotion into it.

My favorite line was "It's insane but they call it a city." Great sound, precise language, to the point and funny at that. My one suggestion: change "insane" to "crazy". I think "crazy" has a better sound than "insane" as well as a less clinical, more colloquial connotation. I dislike the repetition of it at the end, and the last line could definitely go.

-Colleen