The sunlight catches the walls
And illuminates them for brief
Minutes.
Early evening and the great, glowing globe
Is half hidden beneath the horizon.
No orange array salutes its passing,
Only the quiet coo of pigeons
And the slow pitter-patter
Of garden irrigation.
A truck backfires in the distance.
Hounds howl at the disturbance.
The magic moment is massacred.
At the end of each day
There comes a time to consolidate
And to ponder
And to wonder whether others
Think
Like I do.
The sun is dragged behind the hills,
Like a drowning man tied to a stone,
And the crooked, cloaked blackness
Blankets the world.
And good men lock their doors
And cheap women sleaze on street corners
And boys throw their lives away
For the eternal low of an evening high.
For brief moments
In the early evening
The city seems
Innocent.