Empty Tenement Spirit
It thrusts against the sky, that fallow womb
While the waters we raised lap its lurid weight

Listen:
In these austere halls
The generations echo unlived
Their laughter muted, their tears unshed

See:
On these pristine walls and barren floors
A silent perfection that no one will witness
No one can access

These honeycomb cells house tenants, too
The churn of the sea, the rippling heat
And the private stillnesses of corpseless tombs

Down in the drowned boiler room
Some cold soul stirs
It turns in its lonely repose
To recall memories it never birthed
Who would mourn them, those pinioned fools
Now spared their sorry fate:
To subsist on the bitter fruit
That passes for survival, in these vile final days?

The dead-end jobs and the chronic aches
The food that sallows, and the jokes from the gallows
The cry-choked air and the fat-cloaked bones
The poisons to love, and the leaders to hate
The grey lives endured with purposeless grace

What wild spirit could thrive on such pain?
What primal will would cling to this place?