A Silver Carthage

Cook up a narrative
For how we have been selfish
Dash it with spices
A Fancy Car
A Sword of Light

Dance in the ashes
When the words fall apart too soon
Tap on the motes
The scraps of metal
Heaping toward a void where the sky ends

Swim in the river
Running with obliging tears
Mourn what we had
It was already gone
Always belonged to someone

Else

Are we locked in a dance of attrition or is there something
Worse
At work here
A beast
Or even an angel
Whose purpose is less important than its effect

We forgot the fleshy centers for all the shiny bits
And with all that gleaming metal we lost our nerves
The ones that made us tender to the touch of life
We burned
Like Rome or London except no one ever bothered to
Rebuild
So maybe instead it was

A Troy of glinting steel
A necropolis of toys ruled by an angel of fire
Roaring in the night while the city smolders
And here we are, raindancing on the skeletons
Of the finer things we wrung from life

Just look at me wearing only our ashes
Is this what we meant when we swore forever
How I tried to run away when I saw the flames
To some silent haven from the heat

But the tether we made withstood the fire
And I am trapped here in sight of you
Remembering how we laughed because
The world was bright with polished iron

Discover the embers
Hidden under the bookcase
Don't heed the god
Those precious coals
Were once stars

Blow on the starlight
So we can see the world as it is
Stoke the hope-seeds
Prayers of challenge
Maybe this

Is Carthage and not Troy
Someday it will rise again
Never the same as it was
But blooming anyway

Flowers ensconced in the fires of a demon
Still dying
Still growing
Still beautiful

And we will feel it all and watch with tears
Like human beings with souls
With nerves that end at our fingertips
It will hurt like hell never could

Smile like you did
Before we made a junkyard of our hearts
Let it be a shadow
Never the same as it was
But blooming anyway