Angele Toomey Poetry

An urban reflection in verse

From the twenty-something-th floor of a downtown building, I found myself gazing out over a patchwork of the city’s architecture — elegant old colonials, austere brutalist blocks, and gleaming glass towers. The view felt both familiar and fractured.
I imagined the noise, the smells, the hurried lives below — all moving out of sync. This poem emerged from that quiet moment of observation.

Where the shadows fall
The tears of forgotten
copper
stain the cheeks
of once grand
sandstone.
Overshadowed
by glass and concrete,
ignored by the passing
parade
of briefcases, lanyards,
and homelessness.

Each element of
the street bustle
moves to its own beat:
impatient horn
the hiss of brakes
distant siren.

The discordance of
shapes and colours
cast shadows that
make no sense,
and,
bring no comfort.