Urbanize Eden

Urbanize Eden
© Surazeus
2024 05 15

While trudging weed-choked yard inside barbed fence 
in search for safe haven where I can dwell 
free from harassment of bankers and thieves, 
I realize mankind has never left 
lost Garden of Eden, though we escaped 
tyranny of the old man with the sword. 

I pause near jagged heap of cement slabs, 
ribbed with rusty iron bars bent by greed, 
that rises round as the lost barrow mound 
where Beowulf lies buried with his sword, 
and watch huge freight ships glide past fragile bridge 
where pious ghosts wait for return of Jesus. 

Small mouse inside wood television box, 
chewing frazzled wires of fractured glass tube, 
must see me as Jupiter in the sky 
with thunderbolt of justice in guitar 
that I stole from temple of Mercury, 
so I sit on large tractor tire to rest. 

Tuning strings in harmony with the spheres 
of psychic energy, which animate 
our globe to spin in starless void of hope, 
I hum to analyze strange melody 
that vibrates verbal concepts of my dream 
when I improvise tale of the sly fool. 

When darkness clamps cold over city towers 
I watch long metal cars climb hill of skulls, 
lightbeams scratching slim red wound of the moon 
in soft romantic hearts of lonely souls 
who sit at round tables in bright-lit rooms 
to eat soup of sorrow with patient smiles. 

If I could find their tombstones in tall grass 
I might read names of my ancestors carved 
with rigid faith on cracked commandment stones, 
frosted with diamond edge of changeless time, 
but they lie scattered in countless graveyards 
from Chesapeake Bay to the Salish Sea. 

Instead of slabbing my hope-rotten corpse 
in neglected graveyard of empty church, 
where only angels sing hymns to blind clouds, 
incinerate my body with star flame 
so atoms of my body may disperse 
and fertilize gardens sea to shining sea. 

Though Adam and Eve walked outside the gate 
where Lilith controls apple tree of life, 
they colonized all river shores of Earth 
with gardens that expand far beyond walls 
to urbanize Eden with city blocks 
where I live homeless in the river park.