A Hopeless Elegy For A Place Of False Grace

That’s the thing about this city-

A place to stop and see

All glories of men and Gods

Residing watchfully upon the mountain hill.

There were simple accolades last night,

Of the right whispering of sights,

Music, smells, merry-making and more, 

The touches of sensory delight, divine. 

That’s the thing about this city;

On the streets, crowds I see,

Engaging, embracing talks of glorious fireworks,

In the spirit of pure festivities.

Spectacles that one deigns not miss,

For a time upon them promises

A night of warm bright lights,

Piercing through the coldest, darkest streets.

That’s the thing about this city;

A place to stoop and hear

All the singers on their feet,

Whose prancing tunes filled perfect harmony.

Some sing of simpler, nobler time

When people occupy theaters in pantomimes, 

Where heroes were born and made,

Whose stories reflect truth, transcend minds. 

That’s the thing about this city;

On the hills, mounds I hear:

Camps of people, sorting and settling,

Talking and resting, waiting with glee,

For the blooming lights to begin,

To burst into songs of celebration,

So that the music could start

To wrap godly sights in complement.

That’s the thing about this city;

A place to stop and smell

The stokes of meat and mead,

Of sumptuous, bountiful food that appeal

To the sternest hearts of hearts,

And most tender love of love,

pouring such authentic, romantic, even polemic

Senses to balance sensuality with taste. 

That’s the thing about this city;

On the hill, where I lay,

Smelled of wet grass, petrichor, barbecue

Meshed into one impressive giant plea

Or a prayer to the gods

So that they would provide crops

For the years hope to come

Nice and proper, prosperity in troves.

That’s the thing about this city-

A place to stop and feel

The touches of flowers in sprees, 

Or a maiden’s perfume gently steal

A hammering streak of boredom away.

In my head, blocks of memories

Flash inward in tandem with dismay,

Visions of freedom, and unfamiliar reality.

That’s the thing about this city;

Inexplicable pleasures of the most right

Somehow defy common knowledge, my sensibility.

Sagacious glimpses into the realms alight.

All these amiable scenes, pure plights

Of illusive hedonism start to rupture

And sights seen, unseen bled right

Through cracks of my mind statured.

But before I could make my sense:

Suddenly they come,

Sonic boomed through the night sky,

Fire on fire,

Flames strewn across the dark dome;

Earth and heaven switch eternal homes for split seconds purview,

Shine upon my mind all encompassing torches that don’t stop,

Then journeys into my own childhood in clear, slow review,

Once my dream ends I wake to have sobbed, thrice hoped.

There were tired 

Quiet, simple accolades during last night, 

praises of commonplace

moderations, pardons of unforgiving, sweetly sigh.

Oh! 

Let me digress! let me quickly tell you all

Dreams on dreams, sights on sights, lost in time.

Dawn is nigh! Let‘s not forget such stories told

Most of childhood, most of livelihood, lost in wine.

In my youth, old men seemed inevitably, sickly wry:

Talks of love ventures, hold hence none admiration mine,

But by jovial hearth, I heart all by heart,

And so social esteem tucked, warmed and bittersweetly wined;

Rights in my days and wrongs in my nights,

Holding hard and fast, my boredom outweigh all mires.

Just by jovial hearth, I hearted all by heart,

Ran to coves, thither mucked, swarmed with bitter thymes?

Learn from us, they all said, with rough smiles,

Painful pasts, thus would surely pass, just with time.

I asked when time was thine, they would smirk:

“Time was mine, earlier yours would surely thy divine.”

Kind regressions from misty May, month of June shined,

Rolling mad, rad, crying out bosoms of cherries ripe;

bursting into tears, I hoped, quenching thirst with thirst,

Chanced upon pink rivers of promises, gleaming mindfully by.

Then I wake,

I hold in my hands and mind naught.

Just as well,

For no one can be so wisely caught,

With likely chances of dreaming such chaotic writs twice.

Thoughts are botched whimsy visions when I am awake;

Simple is as simple does, I walk home fine.

Looking at the dead grass fields, I again contemplate:

Nothing is quite as magical as when I dream; 

And I am back to my quasi-industrious make,

Working, breaking, building things in a glum, doomed quake.

Chains of people, in virtual bondages just like my

Hands and sanity, accidentally and sequentially found life constrained.

I see luck that my disillusion resolved in time,

In mindless labor for the name of societal progression.

If I make a fateful turn on this street,

Do I hear songs being sung of honest labor,

Or do I hear quiet chants of sleepless suffering,

And do they sense their ignorant bliss being abhorred?

And I am awake to my reality now, trying day after day.

Thoughts of dreams and thoughts in dreams fade away in kind now,

And so it was high time that I scream my damnedest hard,

to mere injustices with heart for those who pay any mind and soul,

Leaving realizations of the thing about this city to their task unmasked:

A pity to stop and see

Undulating ascensions of men, not God,

That sever all manners of nicety.

People are punished for religious rites

Of societal, economic, political, psychological varieties.

War torn streets and flaming sky,

Borne of bombs and bullets flee.

That’s the thing about this city;

Barren grounds crackled in their blight.

Trudging past dead grassland I see,

Animal carcasses laid, in poor spirit-

Spectacles that one deign not witness,

Strange now that none dare miss.

That’s the thing about this city;

A place to stoop and hear

Wailings of children, women and me

when fleshes tear and blood smear.

No songs of any moral quality,

No hymns, no sermons, no negotiations

No discourse, no notions of peace,

And no sound could find redemption.

That’s the thing about this city;

The deaf hear their heartbeats

Palpitating as they hide and flee

From the knives, from the heat.

That’s the thing about this city;

A place to stop and smell,

The scent of brutality, made fresh,

A rotten cell, a broken well.

A cup of newly brewed tea,

Poisoned to the steep core of hell,

Smelled sweetly of death, of tears,

Of fear, of seared human scales.

Smell the ambrosia given by Gods,

Whose provisions in tincture and scarcity,

Why they play for human hope?

While we cry a deluge sea.  

So what’s the thing 

About this city?

A place to sob and sigh!

So what’s the thing

About this city?

A place to stoop and fear!

And that’s the thing

About this city?

A place one hopes to die! 

So that’s the thing 

About this city:

The very place to stop and die...