DIMINUENDO

The sky is a lush shade of grey

As it always is, as it must

And the street is loud and fertile, too

As it always will be, as it ever was

 

It’s our romantic, idyllic landscape

Whose wildflowers breach the cracks

The Urban Jungle

Grown on nature’s concreted back

 

Lukewarm oases of timid green

Drink in the succulent, poisoned air

Of an unequal Utopia, built on coin

And sweetness beyond mere mortal compare

 

Streetlights, sentinels, usher raucous cars,

Watch and wait for the nightly acts

That fuel the rages of the new generation

But we’re told there’s no meaning, old news, just facts

 

The old romantics can keep their fields, plowèd, overrun with blooms

To till and sow, reap careless yields,

Waltz with their thoughts, to early (yet exquisitely ornate) tombs

Agèd decadence, wistful noons, festivals blinded and bleached by sun

Provide hours to spend, reaching into their souls, with themselves, becoming one

 

But, in reality, what good is yet another pastoral?

 

It’s time for a change, for words rearranged

With schemes enticing and dastardly dire

Politic, finance, music and rhyme

Growing like weeds, burning bright on our pyres

 

The muses flee, or drown in their Springs

Nothing remains but what was once a thought

Of a future, mechanical and frayed

Whose steeled hearts, these words, have wrought

 

What place is there left for lazy repose?

 

The cities that will never die

Never drowse

We will, in time, become the times

Us, the common folk,

We the crowds

 

The battle scars we brandish here

Worn on our faces, pages, are disallowed

For higher forms than our sordid, carnal art

That join the chorus of that purest crowd  

 

But the pedestals will be surpassed so soon

The marble columns will stand in shade

Our ironworks, that stab the sky

Will give use once more to fallow glades

 

The voices in millions

Never again sit still

Tell us nothing

But of pigeons and dirt on windowsills

 

The art that never means

Means all