Ugly City

Word portrait

Weeds grow through cracks
In broken asphalt.
Carcasses stand
In place of businesses,
Long ago abandoned.
Poverty waits,
Under ramshackle roofs for sunset,
And desert heat to subside.
Sidewalks end without reaching
Their destinations.
Boards protect forgotten windows
From rocks seeking something to destroy.
Shattered plastic in
Unused signs
Tell fractured tales
Of what used to be.
Nothing mended.
New things built.
To distract attention from the old,
The broken, the forgotten.
Desolate, ruined.
Coarse, poor.
Ugly city.