Those opulent towers,
resplendent, portentous,
came toppling through the turbulent air
without meaning
The airships came
with a vicious plan
rammed them without a care,
irrespective of screaming
One wonders what these men believed,
so intent were they on terror.
Skewed lives and raging spite: How not be aware
such evil, by its very touch, corrupts? Or did they lack all feeling?
The rain bore down. The wreckage
cooled, and firemen picked listlessly at fragments:
a hopeless cause. They stood and stared.
Still unbelieving. The world they knew was reeling.
Midnight came, an Apocalypse, and fear,
with seven heads, tread heavily,
a monster loosened from its lair,
anticipations fierce and fiery, a demonic ending.
Down beneath that shattered hulk
of steel and stone, three thousand lives
lie crushed, and on the stairs:
a frozen nightmare impends my dreaming.
But smoke and poison clouds must yield.
The City gags upon that swill, but breathes:
wrestles with a grip that held.
Then from despair intuits hope, elicits cleaning;
Oh, therein a power dwells, a phoenix rising
newly adamant from its flaming foundry,
consigns barbarity to ignominious shame, and dares
to comprehend it is time for healing.