Old Ways

A day of pouring gasoline
over cardboard just to shovel
all the ash pays in
copper coated direct
deposits afterward.
The paint on the stop sign
splintered from the dust
now just a hexagon
people spray over
with their minds.
I have seen where
the city ends
into a vortex
of dead end
highway exits out
to sex shops and old mines
where bats all drink
the blood of runaways,
too bored to keep
on driving through
the night.
This old road just loops
back around
and you find out
from the sound
of burning cardboard
spewing smoke
into the clouds
that look no different
from it anyway.
One day things
will have to change,
or the old ways
will run out of things
to burn.
A sound of grinding metal
rings for miles
in every direction
and doesn’t stop
for anyone or anything.