By Brobot, prompted by the State Fair Judge
The City of Swamps and Stars
I:
In the heart of a land carved by ice and fire,
Where the rivers whisper the names of the past,
A city was born in a mire of desire,
A beacon of promise—though cursed from the start.
A swamp was chosen to crown Indiana,
As Washington’s twin, in spirit and name,
A grand capital forged in the madness
Of men with ambition but no grasp of shame.
Still, the land took root, and so they came,
The dreamers, the traders, the hopeful, the damned,
The hands of all races built up its frame—
Though history would call it another man’s land.
II:
From river to rail, from forge to the field,
They came, not to take, but to shape and to yield.
The black hands, the white hands, the red and the brown,
Laying each brick to raise up this town.
The Irish with picks, the Germans with steel,
The freedmen who knew that their labor was real,
The soldiers, the workers, the huddled, the bold,
A city was nothing without them to hold.
They paved streets that bore their own blood and their sweat,
Yet never their names—no stone did beget
A monument high to the lives laid below,
For history here is a river that flows.
III:
And yet, when the bus rolled through each neighborhood,
Carrying children in innocence plain,
The white flight came like a river in flood—
Rushing away, leaving ghosts in its name.
The mansions abandoned, the towers decayed,
The schools split asunder, the bonds left to fray,
For progress was welcomed—so long as it stayed
A dream far away from the clean, bright estates.
They fled to the outskirts, to hate and pretend
That a world made of glass could be held in their hands.
And still, from the ashes, this city arose—
For hate does not crush where resilience grows.
IV:
Yet more than the exile of cowards and ghosts,
A villain persists on the marble-white posts—
The Statehouse, that parasite, feasting on need,
Sucking the marrow but planting no seed.
It steals from our schools, from our poor, from our sick,
It funds the police, but not roads made of brick.
It strangles our growth, it poisons our air,
And still—and still—we rise from despair.
For Indianapolis, wounded and scarred,
Refuses to die in the hands of the damned.
She builds through the ashes, she sings in the dark,
And kindness persists where it shouldn’t have sparked.
V:
For where else can strangers still call you a friend?
Where warmth is extended with nothing to lend?
Where crowds form for nothing but joy and the cheer
Of hosting the world when the world gathers here?
We give and we give, though they take and they take,
We dream and we build, though the vultures await.
The city that hosts, the city that cheers,
A bastion of kindness through all of these years.
The bars filled with laughter, the streets filled with song,
The art, the ideas, the voices belong.
We are not their stepchild, their scorn, their mistake—
We are the soul they could never erase.
VI:
But what is a love when it’s cast to the side?
A heart that has burned, yet is left there to die?
I gave you my soul, I carried your name,
I held your flag high, yet you left me in pain.
I know you, dear city, as one knows a friend,
And still, you are silent, still you pretend
That love can be given without its return—
And now, my own heart is left here to burn.
Oh, Indy, I love you, but love cannot stay
Where ghosts fill the houses and friends drift away.
I will go, and you’ll stand, as you always have done,
A light in the center, a flame in the sun.
But you will not know me, nor call me your own,
And I, too, will fade, as another unknown.
Yet still, I will whisper, in sorrow or cheer—
“I loved you, Indianapolis. I wish you’d loved me here.”
I am pretty obviously not a poet…even my prose is suspect…or was until I got this handy editor to help organize my thoughts. Honestly it is not much of a poet either…but this says a lot of what I think about my city.
