I was beginning to run out of interesting postcards to write on, so I decided to make a short trip into town and stock up! Now, I’d had my sights set for a while on several of those 100 postcards collections issued by Penguin, but especially on the one featuring gorgeous New Yorker covers. So I got it! All due thanks go to my mom, who generously (although – ooops! – unwittingly) sponsored this crucial purchase. Thanks, mom, I love you!
For today, then, a poem as I imagine Fritz Lang’s M might have conjured up. (And, once again, I have to apologise for the less-than-perfect scans. My relationships with modern technology isn’t always ideal, I’m afraid!)
City Life
Pray, don’t laugh at me.
I know I sound funny
sometimes. My mind plays
funny tricks sometimes. But,
tell me, do you never feel
these lights oppress you? Like
they’re trying to force a confession
out of you, as though
it were illegal to live?
These doors, too, squeezing out
people through their stiff
glass lips – they make me shiver
and, isn’t that funny, at night
I’m usually warm, darkness
is a goose down quilt, the best
kind. But not here. Pray,
pray for me. This landline
speaks in strange stutters,
it undoes my thoughts.
I apologise, it’ll take me
a while to adjust. What
did you say your name was,
again? No, no, I’ve always
wanted to live in the city.
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 