Sunset Chiaroscuro

A shadow over Commerce where the dream bins lie at ease,
7-Up machine lit up in green,
The Intermodals find their way as the dark patina falls
To tell the people where to watch, who to believe.

The passengers, at the shadow's moment, speak with end-of-day smiles,
Remembering nothing, of salvation's smattering of sun.
There's still light on ticket windows where a woman tries to buy,
But salvation is only for the doomed, individual.

Well-lit warehouse floors, silent cranes and derricks,
No windows in the office parks beside their carless lots,
As a distant tribe of winter palms awaits rebirth, not death
Like the rest of us bereft of possibilities.

A practice field with families under fog lamps,
Worry fills the emptiness inside,
Cognitive relativity rules the roost
And grudge warfare vies for what belongs to heaven.

Security bulbs above the empty trailer cabs,
There is a world, it seems: a distant highway billboard.
The people stepping down the ramps await some kind of signal
But no one seems to know quite what it is.

Long lines of fluorescents in the halls of storage centers,
Whatever it is that's tucked away will not be seen by us.
At coffee shops with neon cups the taste of blood came back
And people only changed each other's minds.

The rows of spying white lights look on blind
While what hides behind glass frosting won't be seen.
The river shows its darkness as its currents catch the sheen
And it rolls along the voices whose words fell in between.

A gallery of forklifts, centered by the flag,
A concrete car wash box with metal gleaming,
And signs for Walnut Ave, Victoria Court but nothing's there
Like no one breaks the white of Pete's Dry Cleaners.

The people sulk away from all of this into the dark,
Marching where their passions lie, anywhere but here,
Down corridors with eyes inflamed, as keen as rats,
Having lost the trust of what they cannot see.