Urban Ugliness
Clothed in smoke and asphalt Peking ducks
anti-pollution regulations all
would see enforced, for ambulance on call
can't cater to health-hazards China chucks
out the proverbial window. Safety 'sucks'.
Mis- and man-handled boom pride rides to fall,
too many cities suffer urban sprawl,
- sink in many senseless senses - luck's
running out, as greed feeds 'come-unstucks'
falling life expectations sprinkle mall
and high-rise, cover all with sooty shawl
to leave behind waste land for cars and trucks.
What some would term an economic boom
confirms decay, wormed downp[l]ay, deadly doom.
Uniform urban ugliness, slab on slab,
stressed concrete pressed to duty stifles grass,
stalkers prowl then growl before last gasp
in shadowland where hands skeletal grasp
polluted air ~ there scarecrow trees once dared to ask
panhandlers if anonymous at last
could lift oblivion from who through life wear mask
protective as lost innocence pities our pretty pass...
Walls, eyesore scabs, once whitewashed, bright, now drab,
concretely stand, discarded, sharded, glass
peppered with papered-over panes, rehab,
pained, anguished shivers pass.
Asphalt jungle man_grove swamps, distress,
churches empty, congregations caught
between high rise, high rents, high stress,
low income, low hopes, lower scope: crack fought
for pitch upon cracked sidewalk sorrow paved.
Murder, commonplace, with crime express
delivery on contract. Safety's sought
with kith and kin who oft oppose, oppress
all but the favorite son when tale is told.
Few ease the pain when fortunes wane to nought,
and blood-stains bury memory's distress,
grave isolation caving in bright thought.
Once, there, some say, experimental lab
tested theories ‘fresh' for some sad mass
condo construction programs billed to last.
Shifty shadows harrow, narrow, grab
delinquency's sad h[a]unting ground alas!
overstretched societal elastoplast.
[...] Read more
poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
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