Ofernyc’s Weblog

Poetic City

In this poetic city, afternoons of rain turn the sunlight
heavy— till it crystallizes and shutters onto the grass.

The protectors (all of them) have left the city, left
us waiting for the final strike.

I find the city in sunset, buildings burning—
a thousand red windows of fire

radiate like singing angels, their chanting is wordless—
it goes straight through the heart.

I listen to the music as it becomes mumbling, shapes into
words—
the story of a man from Zimbabwe, his village

destroyed by black men with guns, his sister raped, the burning
sun. A woman takes the stage— she talks of death camps, people

screaming in despair, cages and furnaces, she sees
cotton clouds in the blue sky wandering over wild flowers

as if nothing had happened.

Then it is America on the stage saying, we were too far away we had
to pick up the boys from soccer practice, get good deal on tissue paper—

we like the extra soft one. Wouldn’t you?

And the chanting sweeps us all back to the city, to the limitless lawn, to
the stage where the line up continues, testimonies of our world—

songs of women trade to prostitution children carrying guns for mountain militia men slaughtered for beliefs hatred blows up in suicide take as many with you as you can with nuclear weapons of mass destruction to destroy a mass not a people mass of matter torture of unarmed men children living in rubble and did we really conjure up all of this?

Did We dream it all up?

Or was it inside us already, cupped in a box, waiting to be unleashed?