94

Tanyol / Christie

A City Seen from Inside

Like a motionless river the city pours into its own dark waters I go down to the sea through an alley, rain on my head and rest at the foot of a solitary tree stripped of its bark A dark army of voices deceived by the faded smiles that pursue the old days Bandits wrapped in thick furs, a pack of wolves flow down the hills, exiles from snowy plains to drown in the dark waters of the city.

At this moment I know some are leaving the lives of others and some are entering, I see their tired bleary eyes, hands outstretched to night Rain in the alley that goes down to the sea drags some to the faraway roads of others.

Now my eyes look far and enter lonely night-trains Behind the cries fleeing in all directions from what or whom of shadows looming large by station lamps that rock in the rain A big nothingness, a hot rain of grief and desertion falls on my lips, on streets and station lamps on passenger-boats that every eveni ng empty weary hopes on the wharf on the dockyard on the doused lights of a last shift on love and grief, and gnaws on loneliness.