Dear city planners,
Where do I begin?
For starters you could start stopping popping out
Coffeeshops and liquor stores on every corner.
Cause if I’ve got two hands full
One keeps me up and one brings me down
That’s breeding inertia
And here I was trying to move forward
Dear city planners,
More slow trains please
So that we commuters might dance more often on the harrowing edge of actually talking to one another
And as for the preachers howling us down at the station gates
Let them stay
They keep telling me I’m going to hell,
Like they’re advertising a new suburb
And I’ll probably wind up there someday
But only after every other block’s been gentrified
And I can’t throw a beer bottle without hitting
An artisanal cheese shop.
Dear city planners,
Whenever I see you breaking new ground
I get nervous.
I wonder what buried bones your backhoe is going to crack
As it digs deep.
All the skeletons in closets moved to the countryside
Cause it’s peaceful, they can rattle and snap
Without giving anyone nightmares and now
You want to put a mall overtop their stomping grounds
And condos
And nail salons.
There’s only so much past you can pave over
Before a monuments gotta grow, even if
It’s locally commissioned and ugly as a bar floor
The morning after New Years.
Someone will still leave flowers there.
Dear city planners,
I don’t envy the position you’re in.
You have to pack so much into so little;
Cram a dogfight in a snow globe
Parades into paper bags,
And still get home to spend time with your kids.
Keep it up.
Nobody can weave this perfectly
And it wouldn’t be all that interesting if it was.
Don’t beat yourself up over the ragged edges.
Leave a little something for the next guy to figure out.
And please,
No more artisanal cheese shops.
polloparringtonpresents 