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THE WEB

Haughty buildings
Rear their heights
From the asphalt-threaded web
Of the mighty, vicious city.

A puny form
Cringes beneath

Their cold grey bulks, disappears
Fugitive-like down the street.

Staccato steps tightrope--running,
Sound along bewildered.

The nightmare
Pausing, lost,

Web of concrete,
Web of girders,

Closing slowly in, enmeshing,
Lightening, resolutely strangling--

Monster, tracking
Its creator:
Gaudy web of sweat and anger
Closes on its occupant.

Dianne Petrovich

POEM

Finger branches of ugly blackness
S urge cruelly into the soft blue clay,
Their twisted joints the swollen knuckles
Of a hard-working, darkened hand.

The stretch of sky, with clay-like softness,
Is streaked with the frantic sword strokes
Of an eccentric, frightened artist
Whose prizes are the paint-filled slashes
Of a glistening antique rapier.

Pat Lawson

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