Three Dozen Lies

Rain streaked down the glass with tender sorrow
Crawling down arches and dripping from pipes
Met with an obsidian horizon and a hundred jagged lines
Barriers of man as dams to death and dream alike
Arrangements of young metal and sullied stone

I know my name.
Do you want to know yours?

“There is an intrinsic order to the lines and curves of those mountains. A balance in the strokes, painted knowingly and with great care.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
The old man gazed out the rain-washed window at nothing in particular. His nephew did the same and saw a dozen creases on the blurred reflection. They were the old and wicked marks of a cyclical life. This nuance was not apparent to him.
“You can’t.. See them. Not anymore. The horizon is interrupted, the order corrupted.”
“So what?”
He closed his eyes. He had a long way to go on borrowed time.
“Somebody needs to remember the way things were, Jensen.”
“What good will it do?”
A pause.
“Without a living memory of what we lost.. We are.. nothing.”

Jensen was keenly aware that he was watching his grandfather die. The old man, whom he shared a name or two with, was melting into the mattress and on the verge of breathing his last. And in the middle of all of that, all he could do was remember.

Remember what? Jensen remembered nothing that his grandfather would attribute value to. He could reason that his grandfather might remember a few things, with memories brighter than his own, but what was the point? Fate and destiny had fought it out and both had lost, and the future had been paved regardless. It made no difference. Not to him - which is what he chose to say.
“It makes no difference.”

His grandfather’s eyes remained closed. He thought about smiling - and mustered the will, but not much more. Any words meant to be uttered - faltered. Jensen couldn’t see any change. Assuming he hadn’t heard him, he repeated.

“It makes no difference.”

In the sanctity of two dozen lies
And just as many winding paths
Will quick choices lead astray
Into the clutches of stillest dawn

Raised are monoliths of brilliant bronze
Weaved amidst sheets of tempered steel
Etched with razor walls of casted glass
The emittance of a hundred parallel bulbs
Colors a dozen in their mimickry’s glow
Setting a new stage for old undertones

The clean metal echoed as I ran.
These legs are not my own.
This city knows my name…