The hulking buildings, sharp and spare,
slow march along the boulevard
through grey foul fumes of city air
as cars give chase on roads of tar —
A single tree stands in the waste,
last stand of nature against our haste

~
You are
the river that runs
beneath this city.

You lend
the beautiful but empty
buildings a beating heart.

And the buildings were essential.

They were a part
of the lives unfolding
in their shadows.

Sometimes it
almost seems like
they are listening.

I'm sinking inside them.

Tell me a story
about an outgoing road,
the house where you grew up
near the Sea of Azov.

I think
I flew there once.

The birds
that perch inside my chest
sing loud, sing soft.

Maybe they
will sing again for us
tomorrow.
~

Dubai has reared herself a throne,
In a strange city lying alone,
Far down within the Middle East,
Where the rich and humble consume and feast,
Their shrines and palaces and towers,
Resemble nothing that is ours,
Around, by dunes and winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the desert sky,
The melancholy waters lie.

There's rain over Vegas
Thunder crashing, lightning flashing
The wind whispering in sin
The people duck, the hookers ****
In Vegas, a storm's blowing in

In the casinos
You can hear the weather, every bettor
Praying to the gods they know
Every deck slice and roll of the dice
Creates another lost soul

On the streets
Fat cold drops soak thieves and cops
Will the rain ever cease?
But it's a desert town with a greedy ground
In a city that swallows everything
A city that never sleeps

You’ve got a city pass in City of Uncertain Love,
walked through the door,
didn’t so much as flinch,
even after all the plasma drawn from this love,
you walked away hissing,
bared sharp fangs, jaundiced from all the scathing words that flowed,
pale as a vampire,
it was you after all and not me you said.
Enamored with the sights and sound, the 360 degree dining experience with a view of the future, complemented with vocabularies to match your mood, aged like wine in the vineyard of pick-up lines,
while I’m left here in a curiosity shop of brokenness:
kisses spat back into the bottomless void of yesterday;
thoughts of once newly-minted strangers we were scrawling notes and now smeared by tear stains;
a heart with no discernible shape, slapped for dragging beats on the snare;
A corpse of a phone you have murdered taking it off life support when you eloped with my charger;
mismatched pillows you left, still possessed with the ghosts of restlessness nights haunting the halls of my mind with echoing arguments of what to eat for dinner;
a spare key—a wedding ring for a keychain.
I fell apart.
Ring!Ring!Ring!
“So, everything didn’t work out for you?”
—inaudible—
“Do you know what time is?”
—inaudible—
—you missed me?”
—inaudible—
“Uh-huh….
Sorry to hear, but there are no refunds for your freedom ticket. Bye!”
Click!

Towering concrete
flora and fauna struggle
to find their footing.