Insomniac

Night time in the city

The tribes are abroad, chanting, marauding, maligning.

Smokers are in doorways in solitary quietude

Amid the voluble certainty of drunks.

The street is lit

The shop still serves.

The doors to the hotel are open.

Gone the modernistas who roam the gallery by day

Now the homeless and hopeless colonise by night.

Cabs patrol the roads, stopping to chug.

Heat simmers up to high rise rooms

Noise bouncing from wall to wall follows like a burglar

A cacophony of clanking marks supermarket deliveries

Against the rhythm of distant traffic.

Minutes go by without sound

Precious time

Then a whistle, women shout.

Tobacco smoke creeps through the windows

Clatter. Bang. Rumble.

The supermarket is refilled

Light comes sudden and unexpected.

Morning breaks on the city

Lorries speed, bin contents crunch

Trains screech and squeal.

Footsteps quicken with intent

Bacon smells vaporise

There is no sleep

The city is always wide awake.