All's Not Well in the City
By Don Iannone

Abandoned hopes grow
like incurable cancers
in brownfields in the city.
Lifeless forms walk
downtown's empty streets
in search of make-believe shadows.
The clock on the square
is not only broken
but lost in time.
Factories once filled
with buzzing machines and workers
are graveyards where dog-sized rats
feed on rusted metal and scum.
Early every morning
even before you wash your face
the local newspaper pours raw acid
into the eyes of suffering citizens
who flip hamburgers for a living
and who worry late into the night
about how to live in a dying city.
Service is a thing of the past
in the remaining stores where you shop.
Nobody even cares enough to hope in a town
where good sports teams are moored to self-defeat
even before the season begins.
Political elections are nothing more
than depraved freak shows
featuring vampires and demons
sucking the last drops of life out of the city.
Everyone denies
in their own way
that we have a real problem.
It's a black spot on the city's soul
that is growing larger everyday
and only a massive exorcism can remove it.
So don't bother acting surprised
that nobody wants to live here.
That is just your way
of denying we have a real problem.