cityscape crawlings

the way a city lives, or sleeps, crawls inside and through itself. roads reading themselves a truth, houses silently guarding life within. lights, or not-lights. streetlights, windowlights. a labyrinth of bricks and empty streets, of pedestrian crossings and walkways. stoplights.

the way in which each city is an island, the suburbs its shores. and especially to think of these islands at night, when their radiant beacons shine at every corner, guiding their creatures home, or lost. to think of mist, wet and cold, foreshadowing a moist dawn hiding in every curbstone petal.

the way in which there is constant noise, or silence. cars somewhere, on a highway, sounding like nightcrushing winds, perpetually. people changing lanes, the lanes endlessly. viaducts towering on their inferior brethren.

every vein that is a street going somewhere, secretly, preaching its hoarse, cruel words of urbanic madness. broken glass mirroring every step not taken. and then the rain, washing the city clear of all its never outspoken sins, how it can breathe again. the city, greedily devouring its space, the air above and inside, greedily devouring life. like a giant, unwieldy beast steaming with neverfading power, ready to collapse on itself if needed. like a sorrowed colossus, never regretting. its buildings, its corners, its doors and windows, worn-out roads, its pandemonium of untold thought. its constant machinery. its neonlight-filled faces, all grinning to the same listless tune. its industrial pipes, feeding it, enraging it. its intimidating thunderstorms of skyscrapers. its people.

the way in which the city lives in this very night.