Metropolis Now

We rot

For want of contact,

Though the quantum thrust

Has altered the ever changing metric,

Where speech and touch

Are obsolete duties,

And the dividing lines

Are outlined in high resolution revolt,

The exiled stragglers

Defenceless

Behind their blunted weapons

Of pen and chalk.

We falter

For hunt of cheap kicks

As reckless urgency

Crowns hologram kings and queens

And makes saints of televised talking heads,

The sterile fluorescence

A doomsday halo,

Tranquilising the now

And marking the end.

We seek

And find

Apathy’s immured house of cards,

As the shape of dreams,

Is amorphous sentiment

And thrown to the lions

Who rage at the languid heel.

We seek

Ourselves,

And suffer its vain pursuit,

Through a turncoat sea of arms

And neon barriers

To truth.

Hell is our inverted heaven

And heaven is our subverted hell,

But blinded minds and hearts

Can only stare

Yet never tell.

Phaethon’s empire eats itself to ruin.