Harbour City

Hydrofoil streaks a foamy curve
Across the harbour, out to sea,
Towers gleam and windows flash,
I am breathing blank light,
Seeing the world though glass,
And voices echo from far away
Right next to my ear.

Complexity, my awkward muse,
Bedevil me how you will,
And I will turn the pain to glory.
This age of unreason adulterates us all;
Smirking swindlers set out their stalls,
Peddling deception to make a killing.
Superstition wears the imperial purple,
Wields the scepter with mad abandon,
Promoting its minions to every office.
Long live the three-card trick, we cry!
Like a bored girl bewailing dreary fate,
The world is always eager to be taken,
Seduced by some flamboyant rake,
Used, abused, debauched and abandoned.

The soul needs long journeys to breathe in,
Long hard journeys all across the map,
To all kinds of places, a thousand points in time,
From creation to destruction and back again.
What time is it? What time is it?
Suspended in liquid, I congeal into globules.
Wherever I am, I am passing through.

Is the answer at the bottom of a beer glass
Or on some mountaintop?
The root of every impulse is pain.
Affinities and affections
Are the measure of my days.
I miss my friends even before I have left them.

I was born of the sun’s largesse,
A pharaoh doomed to die,
At midsummer’s behest.
I spend my lifetime building a pyramid high.