Twinkling
Night covered
The coast
And a coolness
Hung in the air,
And the street lamps
Illuminated the empty
City streets.

There was
No one around,
And scraps
Of paper
Scraped the
Sidewalks
And the cigarette
Butts collecting
In drains,
And the late night
Garbage trucks
Rumbled in back
Alleyways
Serenading
The sleeping.

The city was dead
And the suburbs
Slept numbed by
Prozac, routine
And mediocrity.

There was no god,
Belief or tradition
Here in the west;
Everyone woke,
Punched the clock,
Paid their bills,
Paid their mortgage,
Drugged themselves
And went back to sleep.

It was a
Melting
Crucible of
Soullessness,
A rotting
Dantean hell.

A hell that
Hungry
Refugees
Traversed
The oceans
To come to,
And from which
I plotted my escape
At nights.

I wonder
At times how
Paradise and hell
Are defined by
Different cultures;
For while this was
Their paradise,
It was my
Dantean hell.

 *******************************

With a digital drawing from Nikos Laios

********************************

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