City

Oh Spartan!

What weary wears these hands have weaved

These walls of stone that wears so worn,

You sit and fade, old man, yet you are the light,

The pride that burns beneath these brandished towers,

Oh how you rot, you decay with the setting day,

Your caverns of rusting steel, aging wheels

 Brushed to dust and then devoured

Still your fire glows

You shuffle from the sanitary market with lightened

Heart, with both pockets and packages empty

And with your arthritic fingers clutch upon your

Car fare home, clutched upon your ticket to salvation.

Oh Spartan! Is it noble,

These crabbed and crooked streets speak

Sorrow, and how your weary limbs grow weak

And your eyes grow blind.

How long can you test despair,

Stepping from curb to curb with unstained feet?
Out from the ghetto you walk

Proud below the darkened towers

Of bestial mills and forged factories,

Out from the shadows of red painted buildings

Upon which the business of banks has placed their

Curse – you rise, Oh Spartan,

A staggering giant, clutching the railing

For support, eyeing the tiled walls with doubtful eyes,

The cracks are there to see

And so are the promises.