Originally posted at Tournesol dans un Jardin at BlogSpot.
When I saw this photo taken by Georgia at Basket and Sekhmet’s Library, I had to smile. I had taken a phto of 2 pay phones in the Métro last Spring. The fact that these are near such a lovely green space stirred contradictions…beauty, ugliness, pleasure and pain and this is what my muse came up with for Bastet’s Shadorma Prompt at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie.
(shadorma)
Assaults lurk
In the dead of night
behind trees
far from phones
cyclists never heard her screams
would have dialed for help.
(senryû)
predators always
study their territory
and their prey.
(shadorma)
phones by parks
gives false illusions
of safety
late at night
listen up! one`s never safe
when monsters still breathe
© Tournesol ’14
Now to make this fun a little and give me more of a challenge, I am adding my photos of these phones in the Métro. Having looked at them, my muse seems fixated on sad affairs.
(shadorma)
unused phones
ever see someone
actually
Use a phone?
subways are sometimes seedy
all’s in the open
(senryû)
people make believe
blind to sordid actions
“I ain’t seen nothin’”
(shadorma)
Unless there`s
a Samaritan
does good deeds
calls for help
shouts out loud scaring monsters
back into their hole.
(tilus)
Wherever you go, bring
along a
friend.
© Tournesol ’14
Originally posted at Tournesol dans un Jardin, by Cheryl-Lynn Roberts
Amazing there are still pay phones.. Very few here in california
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We do not have many either except in subways like this one I posted in the second part, the first one was Georgia`s photo in Italy.
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The Worlds Largest Blah Blah Blah liter abandoned them
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World`s Largest? or Country?
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Telecommunication Company walked away from them. Closed them down
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It is sad really, so what`s a kid to do if he lost his phone or the battery died? He has to talk to a stranger? sheesh!!
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Very good reminders —
We have very few pay phones any more … saw one at an amusement park and almost took a photo of it for curiosity’s sake! Have a photo of one on my blog too — just the shell — phone long gone. 😦 It’s great that there are a few places where you can still find a phone. Even if you do still have to be careful.
Your senryu in the second set reminded me of Phil Ochs’ “Outside a Small Circle of Friends” — it was based upon a real case where all kinds of people saw a woman being murdered but did nothing about it.
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I remember that, Jen, about that woman who was murdered. I was shoved on the platform at a subway in Toronto years ago and people backed away…they had sized the man soliciting for money as not a well person…I learned my lesson there to always stand near the emergency phone after that incident.
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The only pay phones I see in Seattle are in hotels and airports. Other than that they’ve disappeared completely.
I feel sad to think that it is no longer safe to walk places alone, especially at night, but it is true.
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You must have phones in bus and train stations and subways…but we do still have several at gas stations too.
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It had been quite a while since I’ve been to train or bus station but you are probably right. There haven’t been any at gas stations here for a long time though.
I discovered not too long ago that I don’t know any phone numbers anymore. They are all programmed into cell or other contact lists. So I’d have a hard time calling any one from a phone even if I had the opportunity. Most people’s numbers aren’t in a phone book anymore.
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