A Thousand Shades of Grey

If you take a twisted plate of glass,
And hold it up to the world,
You see the smog and the burning light
Twist and then
It’s beautiful

In some strange way
The furnaces become golden stars
And the clouds of ash are like the exhalations of a giant
Blink
Dead leaves look like lace through tears
And the only way to get rainbows in puddles
Is if they’re full of oil

And the lakes are rainbow hued
With fish scales and chemicals

There is something empowering
About the sting of acid rain

Sunsets look more colourful
Through air-borne dust

If you sit on the ash-dusted grass
In a park without flowers,
And listen to the noise around you
Make its own silence
And find the second darkness
Woven in the cage of beams
Then the
    Thousand
               Shades
                      Of
                         Grey

Settle around you like mottled robes,
Like watered silk

Wear the Foundry Crown,
The wrought iron wreath
And the yellow diamond
Ember jewels with pride


Because you have given the world
Hidden Beauty