I close my eyes,
for a moment,
I see;
concrete gristle,
staining steel-gray skies.
Pale incandescence,
pocking them with light.
Beneath rolling clouds,
blackness splinters,
with blue-violet lightning.

Graffiti of neutral and violent hues,
splashes color here and there,
that color voices the voiceless’,
untimely, unrelenting despair.

In the distance,
billboards lighted,
like cheap, sidewalk,
window-whores.
Mannequins of humans,
caricatured creatures of beauty,
made to look like us.

Still, they can’t,
for they know nothing,
but to be beautiful,
when all the world around them,
reeks of poverty–
and ugliness entombed in despair.

The distant sound of traffic,
ever-present,
omnipotent,
but in relative ways,
for the masses, non-existent.

Yet somehow,
the air is unclear.
It tastes of those things,
which afflict the world so–
pain,
death,
poverty,
and the ever-present despair.

Somehow we carry on.
No reason to.
No explanation.
Just survival.
Scrounging, scavenging,
hoping for revival,
day to day,
until passing, old,
forgotten,
decayed.

On the streets,
and out of time,
we greet defeat,
and on death we dine.