The New Sprawling Wasteland
Ekphrastic Challenge November 2023
This poem was written in response to the Rattle® Poetry Ekphrastic Challenge for November 2023 and was ultimately not selected. You can find more information here.
https://www.rattle.com/ekphrastic/
The image that this poem was specifically written about can be found here. (November 2023 – Scott Wiggerman's “Aerial II”)
https://i0.wp.com/www.rattle.com/ekphrasis/EC23Nov.jpg?ssl=1
The New Sprawling Wasteland
Travel west from the lake waters lapping at Chicago’s sandy shores
Through a forest of metal and glass, while a winding river twists along
Connecting parks dotted between the tall statures of skyscrapers
Make your way down the arteries of rail lines and highways
Pass by the build of brick bungalows with flower boxes on the windows
Large trees that edge the avenues and make for shady lanes
Keep going to towns and old suburbs, with their ranch-style homes
Interspersed by the occasional colonials, Victorians, Tudors, or Cape Cods
Diverse dwellings inhabited by people, different and unique
Vivid, interesting, and beautiful
-
Then you hit it and you immediately know:
This is the place where everything that came before
COMES. TO. DIE.
-
Once a farmer’s field, now ploughed under to make way for giant new houses
The smell of asphalt, scorched and baking in the unrelenting sun
There is no shade, for all the trees have been chopped down
There is only a little slice of green they call a lawn
But you would be a fool to think that it is alive
It is sprayed with pesticide and herbicide
No signs of visible life anywhere, an empty wasteland
Monstrosities sprouting from ground
In a sort of “copy-paste” form of asexual reproduction
Monochromatic monotony of eggshell, ecru, and crème
And the dwellers here think themselves bold
By painting their doors in hues of beige
But never ivory, for that shade is reserved
For the behemoth SUV parked in every driveway
The ones that guzzle gas like a drunken sailor come to port
Row upon row and street upon street in a twisting, winding labyrinth
The signs and numbers on the façades are the only things that change
And the monogram of an initial on the mailbox
Indicating an identity of an individual
Now drowned in the sea of anonymity
These new suburbs grow and spread
Consuming all in their unending sprawl
Submitted under MRB
About the Creator
Rae Fairchild (MRB)
I love to write; putting pen to paper fills my heart and calms my soul!
Rae Fairchild is my pen name. (Because why not? Pseudonyms are cool!)
I do publish elsewhere under my real name, Mary Rae Butler. (Fairchild, an old family surname.)
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Comments (1)
So very true and well crafted.