Loss of Innocence

Chris Jones

Proud city.
The heart of the land. The soul of the people.
She is adorned with pride and accomplishment. The
embodiment of her children’s deeds and dreams. The sanctuary
where they live and work in comfort, sheltered from the harsh edge
of nature softened under architectural beautyof sculptured steel
and stone.

No more.
Geometric design is wrenched into tangled
disorder. Sheltering steel is life-threatening hulk.
Comforting stone breaks blood and bone. Chaos sags inward in
massive tangles of meaningless rubble.

What madness
occupies former sanity? What terror springs from
corrupt fears of a new world order? What equine monster
lives within our walls? The towers that protected and nurtured now
destroy in a cloud of demon dust and smoke. The guardian home of
stately order now crushes the innocent in meaningless death.

Raped bloody and broken
the city has lost her innocence.

~Joseph J. Romano