Inkphrastica: City Of Promise by Nicola Hulme (Words) Mark Sheeky (Oil Painting)

City of Promise
(by Nicola Hulme)

Gleaming city of sleek dreams;
sky-scraping arks, housing bright sparks
in power suits who contribute,
custodians for generations to come.

Grime and greed crept up the towers
polluted minds, killed Hope’s flowers.
A scarcity mentality ordered more,
politicians decreed more, nations demanded more.

Green mould envy infiltrated, penetrated
poisoned the air, rotted all Lust touched.
populations flocked to the City Of Promise, only to find
the gates locked, leaving barbed-wire-strangled aspirations.

Children homeless, helpless, starving for acceptance
eyed classrooms where obese pupils consumed
knowledge and technology whilst spitting venom at teachers,
blind to opportunities squandered by their sense of entitlement.

Those who had, threw their arms around it.
Those without, schemed how they might take it.
Depressed buildings crumbled, anxious highways collapsed.
Fires burned, acid rain fell, darkness descended and all was ash.

Yet, amongst ruins the red rose bloomed.
Beating hearts, replaced by flashing cursors
in single occupancy cubicles, tapped keys, professed love
to pouting profiles; edited, filtered, cropped.

Planned futures together, anticipated red-blooded
pulsating embraces from days of old.
Romeo found Juliet in Cyberspace.
He offered a virtual rose.

Without nourishment of tender loving hands
the rose faded and drooped,
hanging its sterile head
in a cold world of desolation.

Juliet was infected by a virus.
Romeo watched from behind his firewall.
Her account flickered and died.
Their connection forever lost.

Mark Sheeky’s Oil Painting: Triumph Of The Mechnauts (available for purchase)

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