This web of streets worn warm and bright by footfall, 

Blazing as brass, by hope's plump fireworks gilt annealed, 

Threaded as veins replete with blood to keelhaul, 

Singing of bonfires, eddas, slit tongues and spells revealed. 

These streets' bones were hauled and assembled in hedony, 

Boxy and cold, with memory aglow metal-bound, 

Tuned to our hands, and gleaming like drunken chalcedony, 

Corralling souls to their servitudes since run aground. 

Yet, as we breathe, we can dwell in the meaning spectacular, 

Human in roots, as we blossom with tendrils of thought, 

Sloughing off hissing from silicon robbers tentacular, 

Forging our nuance and finesse without which is naught.