The city that pretends to be paradise
opens its arms and is destroyed
by it’s own virtues.
Among the roses we are wandering,
through adventures in buying and selling,
we are wondering about the meaning of man.
Everything is out of place,
everything beautiful is cancelled by dust,
here in the City of Commerce
skeletons of buildings arise
and licenses are revoked.
Or when we make it on someone’s checklist
in the Home of the Brave,
we remember what we never wanted
and still proceed with opportunities.
I plunge into the crowds of forgetting,
the grey days all on the outside
while we are sheltered from the rain.
Trains of the lost are rumbling past,
desperate eyes are fleeting away in glances.
We’ve gotten good at this, wearing the mask,
protected and grateful,
having learned the Keeper’s codes.
I won’t revise this poem about cities,
I’ve made my own rules for it
while the boneheaded sharks hovered
around scaffoldings of nervousness.
Hours after, when I’m bathed in acquisitions,
my body drawn limp at the conclusion of desire,
I lose myself in satisfaction, all memories then occluded.
Arclist 