I.

I have walked among the cobbled stones and narrow streets of old Europe, and felt at peace.

But I am a child of cities that scar the sky like the spear-tips of Alaric’s hordes.

II.

Vast webs of concentric rectangles

Imprinted upon the earth

A human cryptography which, viewed from the highest overpasses, is both stomach-churning and breathtaking

III.

Public radio and aftershave

Handsome men have work today

Beneath the overpass a a vagrant lies plastered to scorched cement

High

“Hi” to the middle-aged secretary who lives alone downtown

“Don’t forget your lunch meeting at noon!”

Well! And what if she should die some afternoon?

IV.

It grows hot in the summer

And the office buildings glint in the distance like sharpened daggers

When the sun is dragged off stage

They bioluminesce and pulsate like deep sea predators

V.

Backyard garden, sunset after work

Sit softly straining against the silence

Softly unthinking still

Que es rapido es facil

Silently softly sit and

SCREECH

Listen to the music of the night

VI.

Listen to the music of the night

Rubber cement SCREECH

Grinding grinding grinding

Hollow canyon

Gaping gash in the face of the earth

Howling of a thousand ghouls

VII.

Silk

Vice grip around the back of the skull

Sinking

Hace frio en la sombra