Cities Built Upon Cities
They’re turning the city green. It’s amazing. We can all breathe under the eaves.
Never thought that I would fit, that I would be in phase with the rest of the human race but to my own amazement here I am, where one love story follows on another, ten thousand.
I found I belong in cities built upon cities, scaffolding over old facades.
My friends scattered to the winds, distant faces on Zoom in bunker flats and flex rooms, in homes surrounding desert towns carved from the spiky ground of the scrubland, drying out from the civil strife and the fat alluvial delta life, til they forgot what they were doing there. No fair. Always thus: home is where we can go when no one else will take us, where one love story follows on another, ten thousand.
I found I belong in cities built upon cities, scaffolding over old facades.
A rising tower, a magnificent sunflower, it takes in the sun and distributes to everyone. The skyline grows over lonely catacombs, and the wind funnels around it bringing eternal life where one love story follows on another, ten thousand.
I found I belong in cities built upon cities, scaffolding over old facades.
City Where the Sky Subsides
Almost again I met the most wonderful one.
Is it bad luck or is it me? Guess I'll just have to wait and see, shifting aimlessly until the sky subsides.
Almost again I reentered the world after a long absence, but now I'm home, still an observer of events serving as past recompense, gazing out a double-pane stained by exploding rain until the sky subsides.
Almost again, but pushed back another day.
City Where I Fall in Love
Icily, the new year enters. Slim ornamental lindens shiver in the northeastern winter. Anarchist art festoons the walls of the cafes where I drink alone, my face erased by the weather and weathered like the stones of the city where I fall in love.
This town is always living and dying at the same time. People stretch down the block outside the church while cranes construct the skyline, and the net under our feet is frayed, damaged by the choices we made.
It feels like something is breaking and it can't go on this way.
And yet somehow we must make the best of these grey days, and this time I promise I'll learn from my mistakes and make this the city where I fall in love.
Will this be the city where I fall in love?
City of Energy
I got lost in watching the turbines and the panels and cooling towers that make the city light up like a new day smile that makes every walking mile part of my city of energy, never carrying me down.
I carry on as if all my labors would cycle back to me in this city of energy, and I, so long out of love, would again find love and give back to the life that has given so much to me, find purpose and vitality in spite of all of my false starts and flaws, though life sometimes makes it seem as though it’s impossible, and all my labors would cycle back to me in this city of energy.
Renew and renew again, and let all my labors cycle back to me in this city of energy, please.
City of Endless Time
Found her sharing messages. Couldn’t get anything done. She wanted mirth and admiration on moving walkways. Days drifting parallel with futuristic thoughts; that’s what was sought after, that waiting laughter in the city of endless time.
Transiting a citadel of compartmentalized connections and lovers in urban environments, I say, “Can this be my wallpaper? Can it exist real life… a shower of sunlight on grateful gardens in the city of endless time?”
All networks broken, couldn’t get anything done. She wanted more than was on offer, than what I could grant her. Boarding now and thank you much for keeping company and giving me some of that waiting laughter in the city of endless time.
City of Dreams
Drifting through a city of dreams, of coffee cut with Irish cream where rain fogs the cafe windows and it's unseasonably warm out there. Think about it; the Futurists were so sure that our future lay in the air, but look me in the eyes and tell me, where do you think our future now lies?
I know I'm not the only one with dreams.
Drifting through a city of dreams that are buffeted by winds that descend from all directions, declaring war on the umbrellas, a war that produces no victors, only casualties and pictures of silhouettes braced against the sleet. But tell me, doesn't it seem like this is the weather every time we meet?
I know I'm not the only one with dreams.
City of Patterns
We rode the night too far again. This we both know. We saw all manner of strangers in our city of patterns.
We rode the night too far again. We saw the last shows, glowering operas and pharmacological techno, before the world up and disrupted and stole from our city of patterns.
Far from here now, I know you're squirreled away awaiting the northern snows with your books and your radio. I know you're alone and sad about your choices too. It's not your fault I assure you. I know. It's a fault in the pattern.
And even when you go you'll always be in my city of patterns, and everywhere you go you'll always be in my city of patterns.
These days I pace my flat and I can say that in spite of things I am sometimes happy. I change with the leaves and the seasons. I didn’t know I had it in me. And yes, even now I have a record of tragedies, many beyond my field of view, but also victories too, and win or lose, there's a thread in the pattern for you, old friend, always a thread back to you, and even when you go you'll always be in my city of patterns, and everywhere you go you'll always be in my city of patterns.
City of Light
I guess I didn't know how much pain everyone else was in.
I thought that it was just me.
That’s just the way these things go, arrayed just so, born with eyes but taking all of our lives to see.
We walked this landscape together, and ever we were carefree, awkwardly making eyes, with distant cries, demands, celebrations for somebody, and the perennial whir of machines scoring the rest of the day.
That's where we found our way, under mighty wires working down buildings so tall.
It takes courage sometimes to show up to life at all, and I know you're fearless, peerless. I hope you hear this when I say, "Regardless, I know we're going to be OK, because our city is a city of light."