Clatter

 

Bikes clatter as they 

pass beneath pools of lamplight

which sporadically fall,

warm circles revealing 

cobbled streets, while shadows

cast long. Late night conversation,

murmurs of a day gone. 

 

Buildings lean against each other,

angles which feel like they shouldn’t fit,

people sit 

on small wooden chairs on 

the side of the street, glass of wine

and a cigarette burning it’s red

mark on the lens of passers memories.

 

People are stylish here,

and tall. Long legs covered in long lengths 

of beautiful fabrics. Bikes clatter 

and they ‘BRRRRIIINGG, BRRRIIINNGG’

bring fear to the tourists that travel in

flocks, gathering at the tops 

of bridges to all take the same pictures, 

a boat passing down a canal. Banal. 

 

If you stay long enough you will see

everything be carried on a bike. 

Ladders and chairs and paintings, 

great piles of stuff and things. 

If you stay long enough you will fall

in love with the lives that play out

around you through many windows

like a thousand television screens. 

 

A market on a Saturday gives way 

to trumpet or piano music meandering 

along quiet streets beside you

having made their way down from 

open windows high above. 

 

Near where we live you can go

and have a slice of warm apple pie

with more cream 

than you have 

ever seen. 

It is open until 1am and is always 

full of people eating apple pie,

while bikes clatter by.