All these sideshows on your streets
Are nothing compared to the party
Reaching out and smashing old memories
Inside this old cabbage patch of mine.
Go hang around the ones who want you as a ruin,
Try and pry them off when they turn you
From a spire into a ride,
City, you’ve come down off the hill,
Stop trying so hard to be seen with your lights.
You’re filled up and others still crawl all over you,
Bits and pieces, they’re making you fodder
For an auction the whole world cries over,
The harder they cry, the more they take,
City, build one big red light district as a scare tactic.
I’ve got the roots, the glowing seeds,
All to graft myself a new life on your shore,
It’s what I brought here,
The only thing the landlord can’t take,
They’re either on the curb or inside me.
City, city, I’m going to take them away,
Take them to someplace that is as lonely as me,
I want the alleys to come back,
I want the bricks and no more glass,
City, no one asked you to be such a good hostess.
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Ben Nardolilli currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, fwriction, THEMA, Pear Noir, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He has a chapbook, Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, from Folded Word Press. He blogs at
mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel.
Bay Laurel / Volume 2, Issue 1 / Spring 2013