Poetry: Burn it all

Burn it all and
count on nothing
being changed but the
ugly peeling paint and
columns of smoke
replacing
pillared skyline shade.

Everything seems more hopeless
as arson artists chisel out a brand new mess
from anger and unhappiness with molten memos
filling demo(lition) lists.
Hate mail, self-addressed,
signed with a gasoline kiss.

If raised sane, ashamed of flaming inheritance.

(If raised sane,) fed up with sordid heroes,
founders and today, all the same,
breaking all our basket eggs into
brownfield stains and live grenades.
No Master planning in 50 years
but we're still all slaves
while
freedom fleas
plague rat race cage.
A brick tide's crashing waves
drown hopes of rehabbed haze. Everything's washed away
but truth and rage.
Frustrated people set a blaze or pray to escape,
swallowing pride
with deep-seeded hate.

This circus city's clowns
joke around with money and lie until its lost.
Wasting time,
all rundown cogs
in a three-ring broken watch.

Lately though,
I've come to blame idealized fame and a city stripped
of wits by whips, then encouraged to win
a drop-out race to bridge card slips.

As descendants of factory fodder,
we inherit mounds of ish and at most, forgetfulness.
Defeatists dealing with
decades of loser rants
and paid off silences.

But our future's not in flames
or at least not yet,
outsourcing's aim
was to discredit
social gains
and pile people with debt.

There are two prevailing camps of thought
for living here today —
Either Singe away sarcoma homes,
and know in their place
nothing better will ever grow.

Or give up, burn a blunt and don't worry about changing
what you never cared to really know.

This town's like a dentist's office.
And gummy curbs house holes
where homes were pulled
to save
boxer-tooth blocks
on smiling lanes
from roof decay.

Any second, we could change the game
and refuse to play
firebomb monopoly or
pop-off-a-matic Trouble,
but Fly City'd rather
tear itself down
for room to breathe
or live some dumb fantasy
than preserve
its rich history
of rubble.