a love that haunts
The city did not await my return. It sits waiting for the higher form of adoration. It does not mind my softness and humours itself with my mourning’s for its loss. The city meets me with no caress and laughs scornfully at my adulation. There can be a peace at dawn through the shuttered windows listening to the life blood flow into the city before the sun can over look. Women clatter their umbrellas and more boards lay over the city to keep us from our fears. The rain falls softly into glass jars which are sold to anyone who wants to remember the smell of such decay.
This city is a theatre, a monument to urbanity which now stands rooting and which we mock with our cameras both in disbelief and absurdity.
There have been many authors who have tried in vain to narrate this city; to an eye unseeing they may be profound, I fear however such sort legacies.
I walked the city with my mother. Half in awe half in confusion as to how I should frame such marvelled jewels. What distrust there exists in such beauty and what contemplation there can form in the silence of the veiled street.
I sat for three hours waiting to form a narrative. I watched and I listened.
The boat journey was one of solitude. Three German men; two brothers and their elderly father shared some mint chocolate and seemed afraid to muster a smile. The city seemed nervous as to its own capacity as we began to encroach; past the mud flats which were fortunate to live out a different fate.
The city that resides in formalities and expectations as to what a city might be.
This is a city which warrants a silent homage
a city that does need name repeated in postcards and faded signs
to fall in love with a city which will warm to no affection
which will soak suitcases and block all roads so I cannot leave without trail
to be on trial for an unwritten crime; still i pace the streets when dawn is yet to arrive
still i deny the spectacle a plate in my camera; shying to dark corners to satisfy cravings for peeling walls
i write now of plastic super markets and eat canned food
such contrasts warrant a note
already i yearn return
Urban re:passages 