The lights of early
Christmas decorations
fail to gloss over
the tristesse of
a world soaked in grey.
Old townhouses leak
history, kitchen odours,
and a need for repairs,
as the cold light of
telly screens flickers behind
curtainless windows.
A shadow silhouette
fades in and out
of November fog,
the sound of their footsteps
strangely muted.
Nothing feels
lonelier than a city
on a winter night.
I still glow in shades of rose and gold
in the aftermath of a gorgeous sunrise
that slowly but surely crept under my skin
while I watched Sol seize control of the day.
And while today I proudly wear my new
daytime skin, tonight as Sol descends
I will shed it in favour of cobalt and flashes of silver
and pay tribute to Mani on her lonely ride.
I lean into the stillness
of a city asleep.
I embrace the dense cloud cover
sealing in night-time illumination’s
surreal orange light;
banned from leaping up
into infinite space,
it raises a dome of seclusion,
cheating us into thinking
we are cut off from
the rest of the world.
I hum to the feeble tune
a single siren wails
in the distance,
and walk to the timing
of redundant traffic lights,
whose warning is lost on
the few resolute pigeons
reaping the harvest that
discarded food offers.
I carefully avoid stepping
on the interchangeable truths
neon lights write on dirty tarmac,
while cheering for the tiny ice rebels
in their quest of concealing
the concrete monsters
with a white veil
of fleeting beauty.
november child 