Charming Patterns
Gods of glowing neon and gaudy screens
smile upon charming, charming patterns of heads.
All colors of hair, lit red, then green, then blue,
guided along invisible paths, crown heads
perspiring, chanting and glancing down
on marching, mechanical arms, then worrying
as they scurry along infinite, crisscrossing paths -
at once so ordered and so unfathomably chaotic.
Drums are rolled by hurrying feet
dictating the race of mankind.
A metropolis looms, adorned by a billion shimmering jewels -
electric jewels - and an apparition sways over the
bustle, silently watching, silently floating.
Giant chutes proudly puff out plumes of nightly black
and devils forged in impure fire do rise
to the heavens above, graced by the blessings of
the industrial revolution, in turn blessing humanity with progress,
imperceptible except as phlegmatic gasps
and the whiff of crisp green paper, distinguished by
wizened faces and packed in neat bundles.
Bulbous, aged fingers do trace from within
the sanctum sanctorum of a temple aged a thousand years,
charming, charming patterns of jewels
in intricate, frozen dance, carving out hexagons of perfect symmetry
from wearily cut marble windowsills.
The work of a thousand splendid hands
preserved by the unseen, dusty hands of time
did render the mosque palatial, its beauty heavenly.
The admiring eyes sing hymns praising the architecture, alas
they are blind, for the marble, white as angelic wings, is grey now.
The scientist appears, eyes hidden by thick glassy cubicles
yet shining through, lit by the endless pursuit of knowledge
and equally burdened by numbers, figures, notes
and the maddening myopia of man.
On the screen appears, against fresh white
charming, charming patterns of red, green and blue
sinking downward, worryingly as it would seem,
his uninflected pleas let in through one ear, instantly
shunted out through the next by the populace, to whom
the music of modernity rings sweeter.
First Place, Charming Patterns Poetry Contest
Date: 16th October 2021
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