City (Updated)

A heavenly choir of engines
Fills the steepled night
Lit up by the holy stars
Of the building’s light

A dazzling puzzle of dull grey glass
Built up of words unsaid
Try to piece it all together
But it falls to pieces instead

All the people’s prayers for more
Answered by department stores
The owners strike fear in the masses
With threats of sales and taxes

If you listen closely,
On the sickly breeze
You can hear the quiet cries,
The softly muttered pleas:

Is there any blood inside
This whirring ticking heart?
Anything still alive
That hasn’t yet been torn apart?

Over shimmering fields of concrete
And great pluming clouds of fumes
Playing alone all down the streets
Children in fields of metal blooms

Past them, all their parents march
Over the dirt and weeds
Over the gleaming footpaths
Paved with hurt and greed

Looking from behind their screens
The eyes of the pure gaze out
Brought up for years by cold machines
With everything but love: They’ll do without.

Growing up they wonder
What is the point at all?
Living, just to die alone
Behind these towering walls?

And a wearied march of pilgrims
Goes onwards in their minds
Singing a near forgotten hymn
As they move towards a cold grey shrine