An ethnic Aluminium
of the Gi-Ven littoral,
inclined to literal
construes and
polarized hues,
roughed in errors
conate connate,
descried once a
generalized release
and was pleased at
the infestation
'spite the common
lamentation as
asphalt resolved to
its constituent reves
and parked cars slid
into tarry stew
and the zotic orient
oxidized in rue.

The nominative classes
melted into an adjectival
slough of numinous despond.

The conjugal classes
disaggregated.

The Aorists decamped.

Alone the Deponents,
pensive, wended
through the town
they, last,
glanced &
groaned,

Are these the squares
and roundabouts, the
duty-binding vectors
that drew us home
us home and home
undone? These the
siding glooms,
the walls, the bold
affronts and
depression fills
that did our days elide?

Was it here our brave
and wise lived, now
be calmed and gone?

And here that love
did loose and bind us
this pile upon?

All altered now,
now tales detailed and
strewn around this
flattened place, as
if from high
espied, though it
be so nigh.

All empty, all
vacated, all vanities
betrayed.

Heard our vandal ethnic
from her shadowy hide,
and wept.

1993