Autumn Has Come

Autumn has come

Leaves ache and strain

In toxic winds, blowing a chorus of whispered sighs

Like a last goodbye

Cries of the city siren dissect the chilly air

Screaming distortion into eyes and ears

Until slowly pollution clears

Making way for my fears

Making way for the sick, the sad and confused

Now I must make way for winter, there's so much I can lose

But I choose to stay here, stay present in season

Fleeing my interpreters who translate and recalculate

Every word they say is treason

Leaving me to abstract

Flesh from bone

Meat from fat

Rhyme from reason without sabotaging myself

Or lynching my invention

Freeing my imagination beyond its cloudy infirm window

Which for years now has obscured any bold outward view

I want to gaze at the vaporous city sky

So beautiful against the autumnal sunline

Searing down upon this abscess beyond healing

We like to call home

I want to stare at a city so full and plagued

Retching from the stench of its own decay

Beneath this rare seasonal flame

Whilst quenching the rabid thirst of unfathomable diseases

Outnumbering the masses

Hiding in plain sight

Collecting souvenirs some man like me forever has to fight

My body, changing season, longing for pure rain

To wash away malignancy and all of my pain

Like a broken city, my form wears a cross it has to bear

With arteries and roots crying out for repair

Although life can be predictable, never ever is it fair

I must learn to dance with life again whilst autumn is still here