The City

The city in its stark attractiveness

Seduces with a sensual display,

Assaults the vital and beguiles the mind,

Parades its fading beauty through the day.

Then as dusk falls its streets become alive

Carrying on their backs the prowling crowd,

A magnetism, raw, alluring, grand,

Assaults the eye and all the bustling loud

Irreverence of night seems to dwell

In bold and busy traffickers of sense.

One feels a voyeuristic pleasure-home,

Wild, exciting, hurried and intense.

A hidden beauty suddenly revealed

Lights up the dimness and decrepitude

And as I walk alone in night's relief

I am haunted by an overwhelming mood

Persisting through the years within my soul,

The dying of desire, though still its flame

Flares up in evenings when the silent dark

Descends. I am the player and the game.