Dead City Poem by Jan H Mysjkin

There was a city as big as New York Then
the conquerors came And killed everything
Destroyed everything The city never came alive again

The grass grew there Plants Trees
Lianas Bear and deer came to drink there
at the large stone fountains

Erected by the piety of mayors to quench the thirst
of the homeless Hurricanes have carried off
The wood and concrete Only the rows of steel

pillars that supported them have remained
Standing And are still standing At regular intervals
they stand upright between the sky-storming

Trees Their positions indicate the form and location
of the houses They are there by the hundreds
Of thousands A couple of statues of the Founding Fathers

too massive for the conquerors to overturn them
Or smash them Still meditating In the loneliness
of the jungle Dream within dream within dream

I walked between those lonely Founding Fathers
and those houses And all that remains of them
Now resembles trunks of rusty metal.

Translation: John Irons