Lament To An Island

Genre: Poetry
And so I climb, at your most southern point, to see your shape.
I stand and take you in – clapboard cupboards stacked high and higher.
And I atop: see your streets are black as boots, ganite heavy heels deeply rooted.

You wake me, Manhattan – you prod at my lids, ask me to listen
to hear you buzz and buzz, pound a flooded drum.
But I will try now –
to be unconvinced by you.

Why, Island, have you allowed just a few narrow
Bridges and tunnels through which to escape?
Is it because they pin you here? – afraid to exit, scared to miss what happens everyday?

Depressed, you are, and growing ever obese,
Expanding in all directions your men know how to build,
You coat yourself thick in tar and slate,
Inviting a tourist to stand and stare at your piles, the messes that you make,
What’s in illumination? Who is proud to never sleep? –


Why have you convinced so many, myself: ever guilty,
That we need you to create, to move, to twitch, to shake.
we pay and pray for you, we protect your very manhood.

And still,

you’ve given yourself away, so easily – a room with a view.
A room with a view.

How is it? That you have yet to sink.
Why have you resisted?
To passed down these filthy rivers
And try, try, try – to launch, to send yourself to sea,
Where only weeds will float and gulls will hover,
Picking at a trail of your refuse –

A Pepsi can, a magazine stand, and me –
a fat and smug pigeon – sending smoke signals
sneering still.