Barcelona

Barcelona (5th August 2008, 1.15am)

My head is spinning, are my eyes sparkling on fire? -
too much Sangria and a heart dancing on a livewire
to the Mediterranean sounds of La Rambla by night;
I look out across the darkened water, to the bobbing lights
as the harbour echoes laughter and the masts gently sway
to the sounds of the street, still as alive as it was by day;
the illegal vendors cry out to the ramblers, displaying their
wares on sheets to the tourist trade, unseasoned and unaware;
we sit on the edge of the decking, dangling legs over water,
scoffing waffles, absorbing the atmosphere and the aura
of a city that only naps at dawn, hardly pausing between
sleeping and waking; always someone alive on the scene;
and the nightlife is here, out on the street, in the warm air
that flows up from the sea to the tree-lined thoroughfare;
we have eaten and imbibed our fill at a street restaurant,
colours and patterns and shades of whatever you could want,
and the balmy evening strokes our sunburn with stars
that can hardly be seen up over the lights from the bars;
a few days, stolen from the rain of home, to be spent
where history weaves her way along twisting pavements
and art is alive and awake and posing; living statues strut
and parade and stand still for the tourist photographs; but,
underneath, we seep between the streets to seek our escape
and stumbling Spanish and English a new language make;
here, there are friends to be made and chitchat traded,
memories that will survive after our tanned skin has faded.

I watch the world I have fallen for slip away far beneath
as the wings of the plane steal me away, my passport a leash,
but I flick through the photographs and make a pact with fate:
I may be leaving for now, but I will live here someday.