Sacramento's Sacraments Poem by Nero CaroZiv

Sacramento, Sacramento a city under twilight dusk
From your deserted streets the people one by one will not last
Where are all the lights and the young lads gone?
Where are all the flowers and the nightly gowns?
 
Solely and slowly the homeless roam in the ghostly streets
Searching morsels and shredded company in dark allies pits
Poverty and desolation scream from every corner wall
An inferno wall of fear cankering the human soul
 
A shady tattered figure with torn vomits on the side walk stone
His lungs and soul all widely, publically blown
His pal lays his liquids in comfort on a bank of murky creek
while a salty dropp slides down my dusty cheek

Sacramento, Sacramento in your elongated gardens
the black bat night has flown
In his path a wooden bench of lovers lane is unattended alone
And the roses by the hush of the moon lost their pardons

The nightly beasts will not come out of their den banned by fright
The little birds winged their way shrieking out of their natural game
As the broad moon rises looming like a beacon flame
against the red murky evening light.


Gothic ornaments attached to buildings with granite pillars broad and tall
Standing in support shoulder to shoulder, brother to brother
as the night shades on the weary city fall
their claws grasp and wrap your avenues like blight
Lovers will not whisper to each other
'be by the roses tonight'.


A granite bright silhouette appears streamed into the air by the gable wall
As slowly steals the moon in a silver flame
Along her rarely naked breast she announces the starry night her proclaim
There among the tall pillars the glory of the night holds its fall


I muse upon her high state as the broad moon laves
The lawn by the cathedral through the door
Hearing the holy organ waves
Of sound rolling on roof and floor


Odd ominous is that lunar light
The granite rock column which stands on
Confronting the sanguine beam bright
Seems to change into a pillar of crimson

While its lower part is doused in darkness half averted
Shrouded in the densest pall of dark
And the vaults of blending beams of nightly arc
And a bronze snake twines his black folds and glossy neck converted

Sacramento, Sacramento the meadows around you are shining with splendor haze
As the sun daily gilds the wheat stems with glaze
And the night desert winds blow and the palm tree arms stir
a star barely peers through the thick heavy atmosphere
You are far from any native shores
Where waves roll high and foaming breakers roar

Sacramento, Sacramento the charmed sunset lingers in the West
The hot feverish night succeeds  with parched unwholesome air
That softly  falls on petals blown from roses crest
And your inner land cannot see the silent pinnacles of snow aged and fair

The hills around are full with flowers in bright bloom
Grow green and broad and take no care
except sun-steep at noon and nightly dew-fed at the moon
far from misery and despair

Sacrament, Sacramento no crocodiles in your briny creeks
The sun scorches mercilessly your mountains peaks
in the sand fields of your river foot
reluctantly avoiding the banks outcropping  tree's roots

The plain in not grassy in your wide river, but wild and bare
Whirl, wild and open to the hot afternoon air
which has built up through the streets everywhere
Under high elevated train rail concrete gray
With inner voice the wide silent river runs
In it floats a dying half plucked swan

The willow trees sagging over the floating swan weep
On their shades on tangled blankets the settlements of the homeless sleep
the sadden trees with boughs drooping in deep lament
As the weary wind sighs and calms the grieving reeds tops at ascend.

Sacramento Sacramento
In your field the thundering steed
Rushes aimlessly struck by the long day heat
There is windless calm a dismal pause beat
The dust of hooves cloud the inferno air
Towering to the vaults of colossus blue without a stair
The lonely shaded spider's thin gray pall
Waves slowly widening over between a pole and wall
 
The bat hangs by the whispering reeds in the bower
And waits the kingdom of the night by the fortress of his power
The ominous owl usurps the beacon tower
The stray dog howls in despair over the river brim
By his emaciated human both baffled thirst and famine grim
As the line of dust on the human face lingers
The hands idle with patina of skin and sot on the fingers
 
Though the river never shrinks from its sandy bed
There the weeds and desolating dust spread
Unable to cope with the sultriness of the day
The children hide and do not play

A dark shadow flits before me where I stand
Murmuring old themes of ancient biblical days
He holds a worn out book in his hand
Trance in delirium he conjures prophets in his prays
 
Oh lo, finally approaches an old city bus
Making its way heavily across a track of phantom city cars
Its image faint against countless closed shops and abandoned bars
Its engine vocals its core in a choir with a shuttered glass din
Oh bus, where so long have you been?
But thank God you came at last!
Blessed the Lord, you are real and well seen!



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