Save Our City

 

 

A cloud-cover this morning

After last night’s stars pinpointing the sky

Vivid in their distance and majesty

 

Sirens echoing all around us

An easy-to-hear pattern of marching boots

Coming closer

 

Windowpanes beginning to vibrate

Our sanctuary becoming as the rest of the world

Torturous in the waiting

 

Many choose to ignore the sleeping giant

His yawn and grimacing rising from the tomb of our fathers

For the settling of scores

 

Smoke seeping under our doors

Frantically gathering wet rags

Placing them over our mouths and noses to breathe

 

Someone screaming

Buildings shaking

All stunned before the grand falling

 

Running out into the streets

Where they wait

Gathering us up into army trucks

 

The dark green of metal and canvas

Long lines snaking out to detention camps

For our sins

 

Another world of the old world ways

The giant gnashing his teeth

To the altar of our doom.

 

 

 

 

The Pace of the World

 

 

The pace

of the world

now

 

Is too great

and too scatter-brained

to try to sort

or keep up with

 

Unless

we all do a little

to help

 

And maybe

we’ll slow it down

enough

 

That we all don’t die

a miserable death.

 

 

 

 

Pampered

 

 

The good in us

Dwindling

Ebbing away

Soon out of our reach

 

We could have stopped it

Years ago when we knew how

 

Now our minds

Diseased

Having too much

Sharing not enough

 

The butchers coming

Sharpening their blades

 

Many of us will flee

Many will fight

Too fat to win

Too pampered to last.