Prosperity

 Boney, cobblestone streets, slick from the acid rain,

Sit lined by carnal skyscrapers reaching high

Into the sulfurous clouds, impenetrable by the sun’s strongest rays.

 

The scent of cheap cologne comes from the feasting maggots,

Their gaudy, silken exteriors bursting from indulgence,

And the rancid stench of the flesh, their food,

Overwhelm the tower looking down on the grim city.

 

These sickly worms, who dream of becoming butterflies,

Rule over this land where all beauty is doomed.

And, with distorted eyes, they see the exhausted greys and browns

As glistening silver and gold in the absence of true brilliance.

 

Through the billows of smoke coming from factories

Burning the last bits of the emerald forest that once surrounded,

Never to be regrown on the spoiled, salted soil,

A massive, blood-stained dollar bill waves in the toxic air

Above the morbid capital where vultures and rats

Fight over the heaps of carrion they so crave.

 

More, more, they want more. They need it,

As they lure innocent pilgrims through the darkness

With promises of fame and riches,

And wait patiently on their thrones for their sanguine estates

To grow at the expense of these poor fools.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2017)

As I wrote this, I was thinking about the suffering that is caused by greedy businesses and corrupt politicians. I tried to imagine how that would look if it were embodied by a physical city.