Poetry: "Dead City" (2005)

Dead City
by Captain Chambers

Disturbance.
In a glass refuge
bound by hard lines
tangled in power lines
web of city thieves
the echoing of distilled nightmares
embraced and never returned
ants like clockwork
feeding rituals on cue, and
makeshift people try to sail under harsh conditions.
Where are the joymakers
the tinkerers
and toymakers
where are the joymakers?
Metallic coffins
transient and mindless
receiving false information about the real view
a view of so few
so little shared
and I am
watching
tracing outlines with a gaze and
wondering out loud
screaming
inside my head
hoping they will hear me and
no one is listening to me as I say
“Wake up! Your time has come!”
It’s almost up.
I play with this world one day at a time
fondling the delicate strands of measure after measure
beat!
Can you….feel – that?
Not alone
there are strange voices here
and they are thirsty
will they ride home with me
and drink of a fountain that can flood the world
or will the fountain move towards thirst
drowning the voluntary victims
perhaps I will be the victim and the circle unites
spinning around in a haze of what exists and
what we create
I do not live in the place that you do
I do not breathe this air, I
do not belong to your kind.

The blue-collar whores of the Machine
spin with dollar sign flagpoles
like that celebration in May
and they give their joy away
like careless intentions
lack of attention to
heart songs
sounded in harmonious symphony
by those who are still alive
here
in this dead city.
No one dares to make a sound….
that would be too loud!
Sometimes
I cannot believe I am here
and I know that I am not
I am not like them
I am an alien
manifested by the raw energy of thought and creation
given the gifts of my language
compelled to speak
driven
and on the dawn of the beginning
I was placed in this populated shell
born in front of its mask
and given the opportunity
to teach it how to speak!