NAKED NOW THE CURTAINS GONE AND ROOFLESS

THE SLOW DEATH EXECUTED

Daily we see the huge maw

of the deconstruction,

destruction of Detroit.

Annihilation for profit by individuals,

Swift to reap the roof of a homeland,

spitting its tasteless plundered portion aside.

The pile grows with the dual plights of poverty

and pillage as the gaping hole expands

in the name of economy.

Three hundred years of history

reduced to a few worthy square miles.

Miles made manageable

with intentional disregard

of the larger, by far, wings of the home.

All chewed up in the name of urban cleanliness,

exposed now is the door level,

where many a resident

with teeming numbers of temporary guests,

a place in the palace where all had been welcomed

to drink from the now dried up well of wealth.

Until the friends and families finally stopped coming,

forcing the mewling men of officialdom

to go to them afar off now, forever gone,

begging forgiveness of everything evil for the sake

of the memory of yesterday’s prosperity.

Now food for monsters of destruction

who will profit from disdain and indifference.

To hell for them yet trying to live

in a new urban wilderness of helpless laws and conscience.

“Make way, make way” they cry.

We need habitat for displaced animals, feral and wild.

A dumping ground for a murdered society.

Without so much as a belch 

the tools of our destruction

move on, next door,

down the street,

block after block,

neighborhood by neighborhood

all deemed unworthy of a savior 

by the gods of prosperity.

More always more to tear and rend apart,

faster now the piles of loss grow into political points

for the hypocrites who say this demise is salvation.

They lie. They lie, they lie 

and they do it with a smile.

© M Durfee

6.13.2016