A City Scene Poem by Michael Ardizzone

Streetlights, cigarette smoke
rudderless cars leak bland pavement,
symptoms of a night flooded
with dull yellow light, flickering
faster than eyes can follow.

Gardens in house-fronts lay fallow
every phase of the year has united
in the bleakness of the city's empty
eternal twilight, flooded with cigarette smoke
and blinkerless human beings who cannot
face the harsh monochrome of traffic law.

There are three colors: the red of
change, the yellow of flight,
the green of new life. We refuse
to maintain focus, keep our eyes still.
We pass the time as passersby
engraving hope into glass-walled monoliths
in hopes that Someone is on our side,
even if we aren't.