Petrol fumes on Rushlake Crescent
Wafting between the grey buildings
That skirt the reeking tarmac road
Which, with great thanks to the sun,
Smokes a poisonous and sickly gas.
Polluted lungs and choking children
From a nearby school zone, thick
And threatening white stripes painted
Eternally on the road, lines that warn
Drivers to slow! or else the innocent
Strips will be stained red with blood.
And on what was once a verdant horizon
Lay thousands of shining silver squares
That gleam with the light of a dying
Planet, an earth that hungers for
Simple salvation; for relief, for security,
For life. It longs to be saved from us.
Among that grotesque skyline beam
Bright lights from inside every building
Glowing industrial yellow behind each window.
And beyond, further in the distance,
Unmistakably indistinct, there is more.
There is more than what we can see right now,
What we first interpret as a spreading urban
disease, there is much more. There is yet
Another city, yet another conurbation of dejection
And complete relentless dereliction
That cannot be combated with even the
Strongest mind, or the strongest will to produce
Luscious greenery. Inevitable, the metropolis
Afflicts the natural beauty with its greedy
Ashen abnormality that plagues even the
Brightest city. I watch as my own city is drowned
In a grey sea, until nothing remains but callous
Concrete, and all that remains is ourselves, until even
We fade away from the earth (at our own hands),
And my head is held to face my city as it
Decays and I can do nothing. With the earth
As my city, I had so much to protect, and
Now I have so much to lose. The fire
Spreads and engulfs my city in one last
Flame, going out in a literal blaze of glory.
My city is the whole earth, and someday soon
We shall all have to bear witness to its fate.