Dead Level

When the firing stops the city is too quiet,
smothered under a blanket of fear.
When the shells that unfold into brilliance
like flowers of poisoned geometry
have fallen, the powerless city
is far too dark.
Always too much or never enough.
There's no equilbrium; the very streets
tilt into uncompromising air
like the slowly moving wings
of butterflies perched on a corpse.
Fallen telephone poles drag broken wires
with unfinished conversations bleeding from their ends:
I was-- Wait-- Don't come now, it's dangerous--
but this is only a stage
in the dying of a conquered city
and it will all even out in the end,
dead level.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside