"city" by Ross Balcom, Frequent Contributor

city

i.

the alleys

disgorge their shadows

dirty hands

paw my genitals

the city's

dishonored guest

I seek

my detriment and

doom

suckling rats

at my non-bosom

wet nurse

to the void

I have no milk

to nourish them

only this trickle

of polluted

song

ii.

Kill me, city

squash me like

the merest bug

Kill me, city

and sweep me under

your cement rug

iii.

Postscript

My doom was withheld;

I lived to write about the city.

The rat-children I suckled

are all dead.

I pray the city

will be swallowed forever

by its own shadows.

--Ross Balcom

Poet's Notes: I wish to dedicate this poem to American writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), whose eloquent loathing of megalopolitan New York has always moved me.