Poetry
Issue #10
Seven Hills
The seven rolling hills throw profound shadows onto the silent hours of the city.
Lights flicker a solemn vigil through the twilight – warding off the darkness which besieges the hillsides.
One day we will follow the lights of the ring road and the glow of the valley will burn us an ecstatic goodbye.
Mortarboards will fall into our waiting hands and our memories will haunt the pubs of Crookes like sad old men.
The city glows for us tonight, and belches a yellow mist up to a murky canopy.
One day we will no longer grace the dawn with our presence.
Echoes of our footsteps will resound on empty dancefloors and deserted industrial streets.
Revelations will fall on our waiting heads in various degrees, and we will attend still midnight parks no more.
No longer will we scatter our lazy ashes across late night roads or provoke hostile stares with our accents.
We will no longer grace coffeeshops and the walls of plastic cubicles with our opinions, and our words will hang like a mist over the seven hills.
No longer will we sit shivering on warm grass in the blazing heat of spring.
No longer will our absent eyes roll over the valley in the thin grey light of dawn.
No more will we stand shoulder to shoulder with the desolate angels of Crookes - tired old men with eyes of red-rimmed glass, slumped on bars and reeking of Thai-stick.
No longer will we fall from delirious heights, holding each other for support, shaking and sweating in the cruel light of day.
No more will the words of philosophers scrawled on red brick walls shape our fragile opinions.
No longer will we plant our aspirations in the fertile soil of each other’s eyes.
We will crawl back to our parents along two hundred miles of warm tarmac, and shake their proud hands like strangers.
Alex Drobniewski
© 2014