Under And Above

Underneath, there is a fluid
Running through the soil and sandstone;
Blood dark and rich with tales
Buried deep and weighed down with buildings.

Above, roads and footpaths, the gardens and parks,
Are this city’s epidermis, its thick skin
Waiting for the needles of progress
To pierce it and draw the hidden secrets out.

Underneath, there is staunched growth
Wrapped up tight by the weeds
Of services deemed essential;
Cables, wires, sewer pipes and fibre optics.

Above, we’re the living remnants
Of the heroes who made this place a city;
Weakened by modern excess,
We seem incapable of continuing their good work.

Underneath, there is a mordant smell,
Seeping up like flatulence from the disturbed earth;
It rises above the city lines
And hangs in the sky like a putrescent smog.

Above, edifices like melanomas on the landscape,
Spread and stain the hills and valleys,
Leak sickness into rivers and oceans;
The only life are the diseases we’ve introduced.

Underneath statues to heroes long gone;
There is no more play of water to feed hungry ears.

Above the sinkhole malls and bunker car parks
Heritage has been remodelled into apartments.

Above, the Southern Cross still shines;
Underneath, I stand and wonder when it too will be gone.