This dead hotel burned where the crossroads split.
It hides behind nettles, looks blankly out
over the wreck of a valley and wit-
nesses as days crawl and shamble about.
Greed failed this place. The village shrank away.
Afraid it might become not quite a town.
Here the dark rows grumble, “You don’t complain.”.
Then risk whispers at night, hiding their frowns.
The river’s clean, except some times it floods
pouring over a vein of hematite
or washing rust that seems more dirt than blood
leaving the winding gear drowned in a pit.
Perhaps the fate of all muscle and stone
crumbles when tyranny, and hope, are gone.
Filed under: sonnet, industrial decay
