Purple dawns, like nights: A poem 

I can feel the city working on my nerves 

A poetry, not poetry, inhabit my verse 

A paranoia of a child over a broken favourite toy 

The weakness of a lethal fever despoiling my joy 

The city is a fanged serpent spiraling in the night 

Seeking rats under streetlamps; and predatory kites 

looping chains around my feet, and brains in knots 

The items on my shopping list, I absentmindedly forgot 

The nightmare is falling dominos, I’m getting everything wrong 

I’m a choirboy out of breath, and I can’t even sing along 

Admonishment from the teacher for failing to add or subtract 

The ceiling and floor quaking as the space between contracts 

Loyalties in my two shoes, walking one away from the other 

The crime of love is to love one and hate and spite another 

I have walked the riptides, now I’m drowning in a ripple 

The city is waking to daybreak, but my skies are still purple