Preoccupied people 
carry out instructions
like ants.

A siren screams with urgency
in wedged traffic
among agitated horns.

In gutters and trash cans
rats compete for garbage 

A prostitute bickers for a better price.

A jack hammer breaks up silence
pigeons coo like mind chatter
a homeless man in a drunken stupor
staggers past the building 
where he was raised as a child.
From behind him,
steam hisses from a sewer
like dragon smoke.

Across the street 
a crowd gathers about a juggler
who juggles the past and the future.
Distracted,
he drops the present on the pavement
like a miscarriage.

But in the center 
of the noise pollution drone 
and congested scenery,
there's a curious blend of surrender and control 
occurring.

A mime submits to nothing there,
trapped in a box
like a participant sacrificed under an Aztec sun,
heart carved out, still beating
in the hands of a priest
who offers intent.

At the alter
I watch black and white faces 
perform a ritual of silence.

Boundaries decay like the orbit of a planet
that crashes into it's sun.

No muse,
just the news.

There's no time
to wait for a cool breeze in Hell...

There's space...
where nothing gets wasted and nothing dies.

In the city,
silence breeds forever,
I see

while listening to mimes.