Twilight's Last Gleaming

Away from piers the waters pity,
Away from mobs that maul the streets
The last of the police retreats.
The prison empties to the city.

Senescent generals see no end
As their pubescent armies war.
The literatus keeps a whore
Like an imaginary friend.

The cleric bleeds on his white collar
For one last clerical mistake.
The killer feels the market shake
All value from a dead man's dollar.

The city's final strippers shill
A little poon for bread and booze
From listless men whose mitts peruse
A war-map of the Bronx until

The stone-old torch called liberty
Cracks from the statue's infirm grip
And the millennial waters rip
The rotten pier outright to sea.