Relic Four, A Poem

I dreamt of the city
Its concrete stocks stretching past the sky
Its needle-wielding masses pricking themselves in the dark
Its quiet ineptitudes
Its browning green
Its decaying streets
Its mindless, faceless masses never making eye contact with each other
Its signs that read
No vacancy/Rooms for Sale
Its women that shine in the neon light
Its glass that glints in the sun
Its pigs surveying the sheep
Its shards of glass
Its bloodied bodies
Its crying mothers
Its fathers on fire
Its endless miles of strip-malls
Its clogged streets
Its emptiness
Its cars on fire
Its skies full of grey streaks
Its masses choking themselves with their own ties
It’s Everything
It’s Nothing

I dreamt of a city where I was a bird
And there was a great wind that I could not fly against
And was instead blown farther back than where I’d started from
And no one else could fly either
But there were no other birds
We were all the same bird
And even when we all worked together
We could not get past the wind

I dreamt of a city
Filled with water up to my waist
And all around me others trudged through this water
But they never heard me nor saw me
And helicopters flew over our heads
But never came down to get us out
And people beat on their upstairs windows
Trapped as the water rose higher
And mothers holding babies close to their chests slipped underneath
As did fathers holding children above their heads
And the water rose to my neck

I dreamt of a city in chaos
Fire burned the streets
Bodies tumbled off of buildings
Shattered glass cut my feet
Police shot everything they saw
Explosions rocked the sky
And the skyline burned

I dreamt of a city of nothing
The sky had been on fire
But now the air was filled with ash
The buildings were a colorless grey
As were the bodies that littered the streets
It was totally quiet
And scraps of burning paper fell from the sky
And sparrows lay in droves on the ground
Dust crumbled underneath my feet
And messages were written with blood on the walls
The rivers overflowed with black sludge
And fish lapped in waves upon the shore
And all the crashed cars were on fire
The families inside had strangled themselves
Bibles in their hands and rosaries taut around their necks
Dogs were tied in plastic bags
Left in rows along the roadside
And the cows lay in burning rows in their fields of dust
And the faucets dripped out yellow water
And the power lines lay entwined like lovers on the ground
And this stretched as far as the eye could see

I dreamt of the city

Rubsam ‘07