I guess the artistic spirit of Paris just infected me. Don't get used to it.
Long ago, in ages yet to come,
smoke rises from the glittering city.
The domes and spires and skyscrapers of home
stand blackened shells, or do not stand at all,
fallen and crumbling to dust where they lie broken.
An angel, young and beautiful as dawn
coursed through the sky. He clothed himself in its pall,
his strong white wings filled with ash and smoke.
The darkness burned his eyes, the silence deafened,
too late, too late to hush the roaring guns,
too late to quench the fires with silver light.
He has placed rings in the young mother's ears,
hidden away the worst of the awful devices.
He tried to fan away the smoke, tried
to turn the beautiful harvest back to gold, tried
to find one green, one living thing, and all
to no avail. The city sleeps around him.
He falls before the sphinx, her slow thighs couchant,
still and silent watcher with distant eyes.
Desperate in his anguish, he looks up,
reaching, imploring, screaming to know: "Why?"
She smiles her curious smile, and tenderly
lifts up his tear-ruined face with a velveted claw,
but her bright eyes are cold and alien,
and her answer the same as it always is.
P.S. You know how a really long time ago I was trying to write a sad poem and the impossibility of that basically killed my blog and my poetry forever? Well, this isn't anything like the poem I was trying to write, but it is way sadder. I guess I just needed some art museums and to be really excited in Paris.
P.P.S. If you're still wondering about my obsession (I don't know why you would be, but just in case), it caused me to hyperventilate from excitement like five times in the past week. Just so you know.
