KTNN on Rte. 160

The architecture of heroes and clouds,
stories on leashes – believe,
all the concrete and glass. The words
are carried away, in grains,
one piece of sedimentary history
at a time. One ghostly piece of adobe wall.
This is a hero-less story.
Hogan architects, building empty homes,
wind storms raging, approaching
in dust, in red gray waves
under my city, under my tunnels through
myth. The storm is underground, screaming
through the clay. The dead must be
tied down, held in their graves.

The inhabitants left. Left burnt out trailers,
concrete foundations and broken glass,
from desolation to desolation.
Snow in the footprints of their heroes.
We imagine we are wrong.
Carnival of storms, not heroes.
Builders gathering white bones in the sand. Cages
keep the emptiness inside.
Keep the emptiness inside like
a promise. Reconstructing
the thin cold dream,
cracks open mouths spitting stone,
sending walls back to forgotten.
But we remember the architects in
their crumbling shadows. Red
dust moving through the pile of years,
still creating the geometry of broken
lives, breathing dust in slow revolutions.
Saliva drops from lips to stone.

r berk
October, 97 NYC