City Poem by Edwina Reizer

Living in tenements
surrounded by stone
Living in cities,
never alone.
Bodies moving,
never standing still.
A pace of living
that peace can't fill.

Shuttered in brownstones,
escaping the poor,
must face them eventually
when leaving their door.
For out in the cement
the faces are there
of each city dweller
that breathes dusty air.

Neons flashing
all through the night,
Never quite absent
from their sight.
Garrish, not soothing
reminders each day
that even at night
they don't go away.

Dog-walkers walking,
drug dealers stalking
smells of the city
never take pity
on the homeless sleeping
on sidewalk grates
while high-tech money men
await their fates.

Entombed in tunnels
like zombies in motion,
faces on subways,
devoid of emotion
doomed to ride
under streets of cement
return at night
to their tenement.