April 29 : City Boy.

From the thick-grilled windows
in the tall concrete buildings
caked with the dirt of hopelessness
you watch the streets, silent.
Four fifty-five. Tick tock.
An uncontained numbness is in your eyes,
lending a certain desperation to your lies.
But somewhere, your soul is alive.

Dappled remains of sunshine
on the rippling surface
green-clear.
The stones writhe under every surge
of white-foamed froth.
The valley closes in on you
and opens up her skies.
Silver ropes slam into the water
ploughing it up like
so much gunfire.
Wind crashes into your face
with all the gentleness of a scorned lover
and all the grace.
You gaze into the heavens
wet and still.

Shirt sticking to chest
clammy hands on solid ground
cold feet soaked into hiking shoes
hair plastered back, you smile.

With the sting of every raindrop
(like so many shards of glass)
you feel alive. Slowly cracks the precious farce
the layers and the lies peel off from sheer force
and you dissolve into the torrent of froth
that the river rages against the rocks. You dissolve
into the air and the thunder, into the mossy pine trees;
you are so much more than a City Boy.

What has a City? Neon lights.
Unpleasant smells and painful sights.
Grimy legless men with begging bowls
outside of fancy boutiques. Angry men.
So many crying children. Unhappy people
unsatisfied with their lives and their wives.
Empty eyed old woman with unreal smiles;
Black-suited shiny-booted clones with files.
A dull sort of heartache throbbing around the
skyscrapers and steeples and heavy court buildings.
A concrete maze leading deeper and deeper
into the heart of nothing. Aching.
And in the grey and the garish
you sometimes forget the reasons
you often clench your jaw and your fist
and tears escape your bottled heart
(brimming over in frustration)
but you cannot remember
(or perhaps you never knew).
And then nothing seems to be worth it,
nothing seems real at all.

But under the fiery gray heavens
under the stoic mountainsides
under the raindrops and the burning sunshine
on your soul, you will remember.
And once you live to be more than
a gray City Boy under grimy neon lights,
you might never forget again.

The precious thunder of the river rages on;
perhaps that's what happiness is made out of.