wake up, feel terrible
for all the right reason
   it is all too easy
          this augmentation
                        this grandeur of emptiness

                                     it is silent

     a car traverses
  another road
humans are out there
alive and breathing and asleep
                                  still asleep
                                  eyes open
                 the humans are just
                          as empty

   in seventeen years
they will be as empty
      in paris
  or new york
  or moscow

their eyes will still speak
  as their mouths curl
and their children cry from
   their cultured gardens
the unfixed faucets dripping
     in their marble slate bathrooms

in the shower
they still wonder
what happened to their lives
          their dreams
and how they'd changed
with every pivotal moment
         they'd passed up
              for comfort
                or a new dream
     conveniently forgetting the rest

   they'll think back
to the faces of lovers
they lost to the road
   or to chance
     or to themselves
       and cry
           in the shower

            if they haven't
     forgotten how to

               recollecting
         how once
       long ago
   in a dream
       they had learnt
dreams don't mean anything.