Empty Tenement Spirit - Pyrrhon

It thrusts against the sky, that fallow womb

While the waters we raised lap its lurid weight

Listen:

In these austere halls

The generations echo unlived

Their laughter muted, their tears unshed

See:

On these pristine walls and barren floors

A silent perfection that no one will witness

No one can access

These honeycomb cells house tenants, too

The churn of the sea, the rippling heat

And the private stillnesses of corpseless tombs

Down in the drowned boiler room

Some cold soul stirs

It turns in its lonely repose

To recall memories it never birthed

Who would mourn them, those pinioned fools

Now spared their sorry fate:

To subsist on the bitter fruit

That passes for survival, in these vile final days?

The dead-end jobs and the chronic aches

The food that sallows, and the jokes from the gallows

The cry-choked air and the fat-cloaked bones

The poisons to love, and the leaders to hate

The grey lives endured with purposeless grace

What wild spirit could thrive on such pain?

What primal will would cling to this place?