A City
The days are long and painful
The nights are long and bare
Those alleys, hard and brutal
Between buildings built with care
Springtime held a promise
Its lilac on the wind
Summer opened its hydrants
To the many colors of kids
The sky bled with the autumn
The moon stabbed thru the eye
Before too long, it's winter --
A city waits to die
They came there by the thousands
To work in grocery stores
Left the pogroms of the Old World
For the scent of something more
But it's business as usual
It's the same thing as before
The same old anti-Semitism
The same rotten, slamming door
The sky bleeds with the autumn
The moon stabbed thru the eye
Before too long, it's winter
When a city waits to die
Here's your great-grandfather
Unlocking his fruit truck at dawn
His tree of knowledge, shaken
The apples of his eyes, gone
He'll fall prey to scavengers
They're just like all the rest
Who'd seek to exterminate his kind
Just like virus, just like pests
The sky bleeds with the autumn
The moon stabbed thru the eye
Before too long, it's winter
And a city waits to die
Hell hath no fury
Like a city's scorn
If you're on top, it raises you up
On an altar, gilt and warm
But if you're in the gutter,
That's as high as you should aim
'cause that asphalt hunter
will track you down
Just like endangered game
Yes the sky bleeds with the autumn
The moon stabbed thru the eye
Before too long, it's winter
And now a city waits to die
Copyright © Keith Dovoric | Year Posted 2021
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