Moon City
1/ Crumbling city and city of moon
Where the streets are of water and water is rising
2/
City of mirrors - city of glass
City of chances - city of mud
City of rivers - city of flood
City of fishes - city of teeth
City of secrets and city of doors
City of glimmering - city of grief
3/
Four champing horses paw the air
With metal feet and metal manes
Above the paving of the square
The voices of the orphans soar
To heaven - falling down like rain
In autumn in an aria
The evenings veined with azure, washed with gold
Trace glowing lines between the bleaching stones
The relics of Byzantium are here
A young man on a high wire
Dressed as an an angel - spreads apart his wings
And scatters petals from the sky
The tide laps through the colonnades
Leaving shining silver stains
Upon the dark veined marble walls
Tall trefoil windows, leaded panes
Balconies with washing lines
And blankets bucket in the gale
The acqua alta siren calls
Across the city when the tides
Are high and when it rains and when the wind
Blows in from Russia
Blowing waves against the quays
It’s hard to get around these days
Balancing on wooden paths
That creak and groan above the flow
Unrolled from rolls of short-sawed planks
The dark and slimey water slaps
The thick-maned lion with eagle feathered wings
And moonlight glinting on the claws
That holds the book that opens on one page
The rest are glued together in the brass.
Many start
Their lives as larvae in the dark
As water nymphs with hungry jaws
Emerge, becoming dragonflies
Take to the sky in iridescent flight
Like fizzy rainbows, coloured light
Their darting bodies, scored against the fluffy white
Much rarer are the ones that take to water
Of their own volition - diving down
From sunlight to the murky ground
And striking roots in empty skulls
Between the ribs of prisoners
From the sockets, from the bones
4/
The tower of silence, tower of storms -
Tower of questions, broken stones
and velvet, opal, chalcedon
The lilies grow with twining stems
Out of the shadows. Petals turn
Their radiant faces to the moon
In clouds - their pollen scattered on
The waves and dewdrops falling down at dawn
Make rippled circles spreading out and wide
Across the star-washed tidal zone
Unstoppable across the bright lagoon
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Anita Greg 31/05/2020
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