Sic Transit # 2

The city one should see before one dies …
 Renown will raise a certain expectation
and so may suffer much unsought deflation;
supposed truths prove only not quite lies –

   the old nobility is only trying
      to keep their privileges rife –
   a masked marauder, decadently sighing
      for his neighbour’s vacant wife

past moulded doors and windows. They’re a mess
due to the constant winds’ eroding play;
this gently crumbling structure’s slow decay
is of a sickly sweetness – you can guess
the bedbugs in the wainscots, and the drains
are always smelly right before the rains.

   I took a glassy gondola
      to punt me to the palace
   and to show me other gems
      this city’s left to see –
   those stilled renaissance highlights
      spoke of other ages’ malice
   and off the famed canals
      a heady odour came to me.

And no one really cared. They were content
to be the heirs of all this nagging pain
and let things be; nobody ever meant
to make the useful relics live again.