Bridging

Deadsville

I strolled the streets of Deadsville
one sunny day in June,
the empty streets of Deadsville,
but couldn't find a tune:
to silent Mausoleums
my tinnitus shrieked loud;
gaunt vault statues scraped
a blue sky without cloud.

Romeo was keeping house,
of Juliet no sign.
In the communion of the dead
there's neither bread nor wine;
but flowering trees a plenty
adorn the dooryards there;
and stately trees surround the town
where corvids call to prayer.

JC is multi-present,
lifting white arms to bless -
specific intercession
to each tasteful, still address;
in mini on each crucifix
compassion's tears can't fall,
but sit forever on the cheek
on apex of each hall.

Surround old bones with symbol;
make sure they keep their names;
their station surely overlooks
wide rolling fields of frames,
row after row eroding,
great trees nod as they knew
sagely mulling over
those lives beneath them flew.

Yet where is the advantage
to selves unselved in death
in this pretense of Deadsville?
a town without a breath,
but for the breeze which wanders
and eddies where it will,
no litter there to worry,
no lungs to fill.

Raise another vault there;
extend the west of town;
stimulate economy;
lay your money down:
success lies in your records,
and marble is the wall;
glaze a Gothic window
peer down roads without a mall.

I strolled the streets of Deadsville
one sunny day in June,
the empty streets of Deadsville,
but couldn't find a tune:
to silent Mausoleums
my tinnitus shrieked loud;
gaunt vault statues scraped
a blue sky without cloud.

......................

This, below, in 1976:-

An Order

The window frames a blue sky,
entering my high room strewn with today
and the eternity of furniture;

but if I bring my eyes to that aperture,
tunneled through the eggshell of a wall,
a lover's look will leave no room at all;
but blinded I must leave that gloom,
go downstairs and out into the sun.

It is an order as lust is
unlocked by a look, this simple spring
window, to slough a skin, to become,
a color among crowds of crocuses,

though it may rain in an hour,
and I run for cover.

..............

You can use either 'croci' or 'crocuses' as the plural.