Mon cher Pierre,
Are you aware
Of the poetry
n your blueprint of our city?
This august place where
The elect embrace their
Propped-up mandate
Like a drunk prom date
And call it consensual
Call it "business as usual"
Seen from above
As by eagle or dove
Your streets become a metaphor
What do they stand for?
These broad avenues, radiant
Diagonals aslant
Slicing through a chessboard grid
Availing a commerce so torrid
It might melt from exertion.
Pierre, what's your version?
Dites-moi, s'il vous plait.
Did you mean to convey
A wheel or a web? Our city
Is which - symbolically?
A wheel like a juggernaut
Careening, fraught
With freight crushing anything
Standing in its way? Anything?
Or web? A gossamer snare
Raveling the unaware
In their own good intentions,
Food for some weaver's inventions
"Character is fate" quoth Aristotle
Was this your message in a bottle?
Have we been defined
By these streets you designed?
Does form in fact determine
Our beginning and our end?
Pierre, I fear thus far
We're little better than we are
Despite your genius and God's lamp
We've yet to make it
through the swamp

Orioles weave their nest
Unconscious of any cleverness
Willows hula in April sun
Not knowing how the hula’s done
Ratsnake swallows mole
Untroubled by good or evil
Mole’s last squeak – adrenal song
Not a screed on right and wrong
The loopy moon doesn’t smile or frown
The wind needs no hope to carry on
Likewise seek no pity
No better day to come
Likewise want no meaning
From the poem.