Lucky

Gold-rimmed glasses fog up.
Pearls and diamonds glitter sharply on stubby fingers,
Contrasting with the withered life forms
By the side of the road.

Dark outer covering, 
Hurtling through the abject misery,
The cries of the ancients,
And the modern Sodom.

The bloodthirsty packs: red-lined teeth,
Dark reminiscent figures,
Memories from a timeline unlived.
The broken bones trodden underfoot by fast-pacing wheels,
The engines of civilization.

Trolley cars through which I wander;
Warm cups of hot cocoa handed out by friendly stewards.
The shutter over a window out into the fog.
That desolate lonely space filled with the pain of so many.

Rubles and dollars,
Cents and dimes:
All these cover the round red dots,
Spreading,
Seeping
Through hard compact soil:
The life force of not-so-bygone Gomorrah. 

The train rushes past the innocents,
Captured by the grasp of dark-shaded demons,
Away from the light, held back from the coming sun.

When the voices of the trolley car shock me back,
Laughing,
Happiness;
Is this truth,
Or is truth the penitentiary of sex and drugs
Which litter the cold, icy streets?

I sip my hot cocoa.