Morning on Market Street - painting by Mike Hill

Crisp, looming chill arrived at the scene,
riding on autumn wind that came bristling in,
hugging sun-drenched walls of a bustling city
buried in busy humdrum of the workaday din.

Oblivious to falling leaves of road-side trees,
emerging from their edifice of ambitious schemes,
indoctrinated workaholics hustled through avenues,
chasing castles in air for amelioration of dreams.

Engaging masses traded with eagerly dealing vendors,
ambling through the market, amused by the street clown,
with wheels of city commerce spinning as planned
– a center of social labyrinth is this downtown.

Tugging into their rag-tag coats and scuffed shoes,
are loitering street bums in nooks and corners,
bracing for a painful winter, craving for joints and smokes,
begging for a buck or two from sight-seeing foreigners.

Raging locomotives clamored along congestive roads,
with tripped up commuters trapped in self-made riddles,
as touring day-trippers gazed at marvels of mankind
– conquerors of wild, architects of these concrete jungles.

In an aimless journey with destination unknown,
arrived a lonely traveler by flippancy of fortune,
– allowed to be on his own, left to survive all alone,
he found a haven in a teeming maze, living in isolation.

Buried in this amalgamation of hopes and miseries,
are the audacious few, laughing at those anxious and agitated,
living in fleeting joy-rides on wheels of instinct,
mocking at the upright uptight with tribulations inflated.

On an autumn day ushering season’s changes,
dreams and despairs converged to display,
in a specious sense of power and intellect,
social nexus of species, its civilization in play.