On Lighting Fires
They don’t let us light fires anymore
The cold predictable green of the neverending bills
replaces the creamy, dreary brown of coffee
replaces the plastic smile and the steady click-click-click of the ticket machine
The faux-friendliness “Thank you, enjoy your show”
The faces crowd by
Dreary as the walls of the office buildings where they reside
Crystal dreams shattered
Replaced by plastic, unbreakable smiles
Thank you, enjoy your show
Impersonal
Refuge from solitude taken in crowded places
Where harried, disillousioned women
Serve a million men
Meals that taste just like home
Taken elsewhere
There’s no place like home
Not anymore anyway
Plastic covered couches
Pretty things that break if you breathe on them
They imitate the sun, they imitate the sea
Yet somewhere between the mountain of monotony and the sea of imitation
Comes the sparkle of color
of wit
of genuineness
that is only made brighter by its insipid surroundings
A marriage of extremes
A clash that births a phoenix