Meter, shmeter

[miss_pryss]

So ellen_fremedon says that kassrachel says that it's unmetered poetry week, but I could never follow those rules, and I wrote this poem one time. Shortly after September 11, I spent a bunch of time mooning after Samuel Johnson and his lover, I mean friend Boswell, and in an attempt to mimic his use of heroic couplets I wrote this poem about my hometown, Detroit. Please keep in mind, this is at least half satyrical.

I find New York too dark, too sad to treat,
Though here I had planted poetic feet;
Since dark matters have been covered better,
This poet turns thoughts to subject lighter –
To Hometown, belle Detroit, “Alma Mater”
Who in the streets and vacant lots taught her.
Detroit, whose broken streets are filled with glass,
Whose lots no houses host, no homes, but grass.
Detroit, my empty city, burnt away
From the bright glitt’ring pomp of yesterday.
Where roads are cracked, where crack itself is king –
Authority concerned with pilfering –
My heart now turns, my thoughts themselves array
As always, when I pine I find I stray
To sprawling emptiness, to quiet gray.

This silver silence fondest friend became
When through my empty town in thoughtful frame
I used to walk to school and back again.
And though my way with dirt and dearth was strewn,
Though fallen trees abandoned roofs had hewn,
Though not a soul I might observe for miles,
There nothing serves to damp my love. In piles
I heap the praise for my hometown, my post-
Apocalyptic city, gracious host.
I love Detroit. Its poetry and grace
Are features all of its disfigured face:
The tree, the pheasant bright, the blooming field,
What city could these rural pleasures yield
Than one whose urban sprawl had given way
To dawn of evolution’s strange new day?