Tuesday 10 July 2012

The Old Town

Thin line of chalk
Across a felt blue sky
Briefly ahead of arrival
One mark
Two hundred tourists leave
Long after late departure
Expanding dissipating carrying
Homeward from littered beaches

Now that winter
Has packed its bags
Decent citizens stagger
Through
Burdensome afternoon labour
In the vaporous ripple
From the gutter of holiday dreams
Under blood-ripened tangerine sky


Spinning pinwheels
On the hillside
Hands of colossal clocks
Counting time
As sheaves of wheat
Stacked and rolled for brute famine
Electric failure and water shortage
Betray those lengthy limbs of history

Kerosene lamps
Strung on twine
Connecting portico posts
Flickering
Pixelated screens behind
Faded lace-covered windows spread
Along the hill as covert metropolis
Disguising the original village wings

Stand securely
Beside the hopeful future
To gaze beyond the loam
Watch waves
Surge down a polished shore
Wrinkling
The mirage-soft perspective
In advance of the heat-curled
Carrotic arc 
Of a delicate ladled sun

You take the old town
I’ll have the rest of the world


 
Back in your two up one down
Semi-detached brownstone
Frown
Drag your feet
Raindrop ghost walk
That parade of the past
Shuffle off the mortal coil
Behind a mud-splashed street
The dirty docks and mistier ports
A national treasure a flag unfurled
A grope in the alley or dark of the pub

You have the old town
I’ll take the rest of the world

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