A Portrait of Our World

All hail the beautified urban landscape;

Its concrete gut sprawled out across the world,

Its spine of steel and lungs of polythene

Gasping for each lifeless, pungent breath.

Behold the wondrous forest of high-rise trunks;

Each dismal grey block stabbed into the soil

As its silica windows look down upon

The cankered pavement, and reach ever higher

For freedom.                     

 

All revere this Plutonic city scene

Stretched violently over the Earth’s face;

Its greed-driven streets rife with crime and vermin

Between cold-hearted ground and sullen sky.

Worship the gently forced aestheticism

Of mass produced clones and drones and drugs,

While we rack our decaying brains, wondering how,

As if by some callously mocking miracle,

We live here.

 

All bask in the ephemeral rays of

Thick yellow liquid from infected wounds.

The acid clouds curdle. Each earthbound tear

Splinters the eyes of stone saints and angels.

Admire the glorious triumph over nature;

We drown the stars in densely exhaled smog

Whilst in denial of any grievance true

We execute each day as if alone

We feast on bountiful wealth.

 

All gaze in awe at this oasis bleak;

The incandescent lollypops give rise

To congestion, on filthy, gritted roads.

Its “green schemes” failed to regain lost karma.

Witness the ambient swells of exhaust fumes;

Each plume dancing into the mouths of your children

As an architect stands tall in admiration

Of his completed feverish structure,

Erected high so all can see and loathe, and says,

“This is truly art.”