They swallowed tacks
and burst their bubble.
It came out of their eardrums
triumphant like a flag
out of the engine oil and iron beams
that gnawed into the rocks.
The smell of blood and dead leaves,
of piss and copper, the old booths
that disappeared in time,
the phones that never worked;
they rang and told the thirteenth floor
that it had been promoted.
Those angry men with their cheap shirts
the women with their twisted toes
the children that were playing there
the square was loud and thorny.
It came in on their voices
and they said it would not be wrong
to gallivant around the globe
with nothing but a padlock
that lets the slaves unite.
Before holes in the street appeared
the money started rolling in
the social justice came to be
and silver turned to yellow.
I liked that spot, and I still do
but best I do not go there.
It came up from some dried up well
it came into the smoggy air
beside the ageing kiosks
that smelled of anise gum.
The bigger hummingirls who knew
it wouldn’t lead into tomorrow
but still waited in line,
like mother had foreseen,
to eat some ground asbestos
and brighten their palette.
(She stabbed a pen into their skin
to write them as they should have been.)
My real friends only passed through there
except for two, but not for long
the girl abducted by princesses
the boy was sacrificed to God
and me the faithless pleb
it’s best I do not go there.
It isn’t a nice place today
my wife she broke both ankles there
and snakes arose and steered the ship
the pistons slid on fang and spit
and it was night on a cursed boat
that couldn’t reach a morning.
It came after the ending passed
in dreams so clear and simple
that tune you can’t remember
although you know there was a tune
mourning the olden done.
You either pay with hope or time;
I chose to do the former
and bought a rainy peace
where I can spend my time instead.
Yet that old tune is always there,
from phones that never worked,
it’s humming in the iron beams
not far in space and time;
I loved that spot, and I still do
but I will not go back there.
It crawled around the ruins and sank
infected tried and rank it was,
that swan song meant for me.
But if you give them time,
for good or ill, things rot and feed
the things that grow there after.