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Abstract: The article describes the lexical-semantic features of creating a modern city image in newer Russian poetry. The material for analysis is made of the Russian poets selected works published in literary magazines «Novyj mir», «Oktyabr'», «Аrion», «Znamya», «Ural», «Zvezda», «Novaya yunost'» in the period from 2013 to 2018. Different authors of poems reveal two tendencies to create a modern city image. The first tendency is related to a post-Soviet city which inherited the traits of the Soviet city. The second tendency deals with a developing modern city image with extremely heterogeneous socio-cultural space, characterized by increased conflict, aggression and contempt for Western culture, as well as the dominance of market relations in different spheres of life. Contextual analysis allows to distinguish the following linguistic means of creating a modern city image: use of lexical items and rhetorical devices typical of the Soviet discourse, the Soviet ideologemes along with the contemporary clichéd expressions, modern urban sociolects, speech mimicry (which allows the author to distance himself from the pejorative statements). "Borrowed" speech forms the image of a modern town dweller who has archaic and primitive political and cultural attitudes. Substandard lexemes, lexemes with the meaning of unsuitability for use represent a dilapidated and abandoned urban space.