sometimes when I drive to work
the city looks like it is burning.

the sun slipping into the horizon
its wrath ablaze.

it casts raging orange hues across
glass windowed skyscrapers.
it creates a skyline filled with furious fire.

the back of my neck burning
from the warmth of the sun still setting,
and if i think about it long enough,
i can feel the glass windows melting.

i've always imagined the city like this,
raging
and chaos
with life fleeting.

and if i turn the music down,
and roll down the window slightly,
i think i can hear the souls screaming.

deep cries
while life just slips
from their fingertips

the point is,
it looks like the city is dying,
skin blistering, ash breathing

and just for a minute here I think
that this is the cityscape of my mind

all the rage,
and the fury.

and it makes me question why the reflected orange
brings me such peace.

a man leans as i leave
the office building—against it,
dark and young,
his face has emptied
of expression, and innocence
has fallen away like drying sand from a stone in the sun,
i do not look at him,
in passing,
out of respect, i tell myself,
but know: out of fear
of connection i do not speak to him.
next morning, he is not
there is only a mound of sand,
which, in my name,
the city workers and the wind sweep and carry away.

seeds fluff the air
agents of a nuisance **** ;
                              'the city' warns

faded ladybirds thrive
aggressors from a foreign land ;
                               'the city' warns

Humans
brush past
one another
in the shifting
colors of the
city lights,
the droplets
fall from the clouds
of time
as though
touched by
starlight, and
even love arrives
by fate for the
people who
are not it's
seekers.

The city grows on,

as if there were no workers --


but a magician.

the sky is sopping up
                smears of weather from the city day
filling out darkly
  the portly host of the eve   ushers us into warm dens
nature starts the night shift
it appraises

this night is rat dog    recovering from urban filth
                                       rolling in grass dew and spoil

the tainting of the air     is contributed to from abroad
migration of contraband fumes (forest fires out west)
                                     and the heat raises

too populated   to hold a proper witching hour
the night in shifts
any slumber has its quality watered down 
                                    the constant street activity

weeping sunrise   nights excuses stopper   inebriation rests
arrested blight   morning light and everything about
your crushable body smiles naked things
i roll over to face the uncurtained window
hunch out of bed and stilt my way
to support my self at the sill

overcast with an invasive muffle of smog
members of the bright-time    pooling for occupation
                      do not remember the night
                                it's simply poor sleep

It is night, I walk

across the metropolis --


which denies the night.