sweet birdsong consumes
the bitterness of cities
a summer morning

concrete jungle heat
suffocating cityscape
~ bare feet loving grass






Mark Toney © 2021

Stop, Drop, Rock n' Roll!
We built this city on cruise control!
It started with a seed and grew into a jungle
Where people grumble and boxcars rumble
It's growing up! It's growing out!
So honk those horns! And curse and shout!
**** these newfangled roundabouts!
There's a new billboard on every corner
Just signs and symptoms of the greater disorder
The cancerous urge to keep growing and growing
It will be too late when it finally starts slowing
So get outside! It's time to start mowing!
Before our urban yards start showing
Their wild side.

the cities
redraw their borders and
fragment their spaces
into small cubes:
apartments,
studios,
and duplex houses.
and you,
with a thousand windows open
in windows,
your emoji hands,
and your microphone muted.

I am tiny and idle
I wonder curious at heart
I hear clanking of eyes
I see untold murders
I want to expand the voice
I am soul and dented

I pretend
I feel
I touch
I worry
I cry
I am

I understand
I say
I dream
I try
I hope
I am...

My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in

Everyone looked worse in the light

You ask me
To build you cities
When I only have
Avenues of waterfalls
I wish
These words
Could build you rafts
So you could
Float along the horizon
At the end of the day
Promises are hollow
And we all sink
Like ships

I lived in Shenzhen, China, for my 6th and 7th grades.
- China was AMAZING.

In China, blond hair is unusual, I stood out like neon
and touching blond hair was considered good luck.

In a train station, if I stood still, I could draw a curious mob
- especially in the provinces like Heubi and Shanxi. I was in
more than a few selfies but people were polite and respectful.

China is much more advanced than the U.S..
Everything is new, clean and modern - the Internet is faster.
Most trains are bullet trains that travel 325kph (>200mph).
There are more than 10 new, gleaming cities larger (and newer) than New York.

An App called WeChat (used on your phone) runs the world.
imagine Facebook, iMessage, PayPal and Uber combined
- with that one App you could do anything.

At restaurants, you paid your bill at your table using WeChat from a QR code that the electronic corner of your table displayed. You even paid street vendors with the app - no one used cash.

Cameras are everywhere - if you break a law like jaywalking and BBBZZZZ you get a text and the fine is deducted from your WeChat account - all automatically.

Public TV screens, located on corners, show recent violations with the perps picture and the fine they paid - again, automatic.

Does this sound Orwellian? Well, maybe, but Chinese police
don't **** people - or even engage people for minor offenses.

America, you're broke and on the edge of being a third world country.

Yeah, yeah, I know that China is free-market-communist
and certainly imperfect - but if you saw China, you'd be impressed
and you'd know the ugly truth - America has squandered it's wealth on military macho and forty years of war. China's last, small war was in 1980 (With Vietnam who they beat in 3 weeks and 2 days).

Middle America looks almost bombed-out with closed businesses
(even before the pandemic) - but in China, you can’t look anywhere
without seeing building cranes - like a forest of trees. A physical
illustration of Americas loss of wealth.

I LOVE America - it’s sad to see. We've gotta wake up.