Enchanted Town

by ALFRED R. ROHN

Thoughtless balconies,
like curled horns
pierce out from the walls of a crumbled reality.
Off below,
gray sidewalks, chased by growing cracks,
swiftly disappear into the horizon.
Gateways, with bad postures,
brace the doors of refuge.
Oh but alas! they are welded shut by rust
yet, mock hinges in tight arrangements,
still proudly impose
mechanical responsibilities.

Burned out streetlights sway in depression
as deformed shadows penetrate through
the boundaries of
a frost-clouded void.
Slowly, they blend
the condemned pressed flowers
into souvenirs of
long lost carnivals.

The nameless streets are muddled with
puddles of thirsty dust.
They lay in half-filled dreams,
awaiting for a puff of time.
But the tick-tock of the great clock,
in the central square
of this futureless town,
is trapped between the past,

and its scratched glass.