He walked down an empty alleyway,

The streets had no name,

He can’t even remember anyway,

Nor does he want to know a name



The roads were decorated with garbage,

Human waste, and humans wasted,

Entrails of a dying age,

None of them ever lasted



Rolling tires and burnt cars,

A bar stood with blinking lights,

This town stands ashamed with scars,

Once an ardent bubble with bright lights



The traffic lights play their own synchronized beat,

With a song that he couldn’t hear,

The brownstone houses crumbled in the heat,

They sang a song he could hear



The town-hall had no living souls,

Everyone had disappeared after the plague,

This is a city with no more roles,

Even the signs are vague



A jolly amusement park with abandoned rides,

Now the clowns lay dead with hollow eyes,

Their smiles still gleaming with pride,

Their mouth whispering out flies



He picked up the pieces,

What he could find in his rotten home,

The door-bell and the number, he shot down to pieces,

The shotgun echoed throughout the dome,



A sign of his departure,

To the next living town,

Whistling, but watchful like a vulture,

Armed and onwards, to the next brown town,



Where the streets have no name,

Where the town has lost its fame,

Where he doesn't know a soul,

But he fills a void in his soul,

When he fills a void in your town,

Know then, to avoid your town,

Your town now goes to sleep,

A slumber that will be forever and deep.

- Vijaya Balan (2014)