The Xenon Penny

Sing for your supper, for a pocket full of dimes,
Build a little city where it isn't very dry;
Not the fish in the sea, nor the 'gators in the reeds
Will whistle to the tune of the buildings in construction,
As the carpets are rising up the towers' insides
And the aerials branching from the helical wires
Through the clouds in the sky, under weather satellites
---- reddened as the sun sets over the horizon.
And the land has been covered with the concrete and the brick
For the cars to drive on with their windows hanging wide
Seeing paintings on the billboards on the towers going by
With the little flashing lights saying: "Buy My Flight,
"Get a Ride for your Money, Fill the Pink Piggy Bank,
"Find a Pocket Full of Diamonds in the Sink Drain Tank."
And the cars ride out like the bullets of the night
Double flames at the front, they carry rockets at the back
Going down along the highway in escape from an attack.
For the city is exploding in the dust and the grime
Its districts cracked and molten and the streets on fire
Channel golden rivers flowing from the lightning rock sides
Beneath an ash-ridden plume rising like a bee-hive
In the air above the sea---- twenty miles wide
Where the wing-foils glide going downwards all the time
Catching bubbles of gas to be tested in the lab
Where they find its formation and design a suit and mask
To be worn for protection from environmental hazards
That the plants have adapted under chemical stress
Of the mutagenic acid that's been pouring on their heads.
And the war carried on like a ten percent solution
Stirring fall-out in the air from the battlefield ruins:
A gramme per explosion is a high enough precision
When the guns in the water come powered by fission.
Gas mask filters are stockpiled in the pocket,
They sell them by the dozen because most of them are rotten.
While the 'gators getting sick on the islands in the reeds
And the fish in the sea are drying on the sand
By roads of cement where the cars are rusting wide
The seagulls fall from trees and cannot even fly.
The blaze of the sun is breathing heavy on the town
A live man walks in an isolation gown
At the foot of a tunnel with a lift going down
To the pits underground that echo belly sounds
Due to bland indigestion of food foam nuggets
That are five years old and all gone cold.
The drillers sit still behind a turbine and the rock
Grinds into gravel with the great gnashing sounds,
It rolls like a screw in the jaw of a mouse
Whose house in the wall has been sealed over
And buried in the rubble of a tall fallen tower.