My Pen No Paintbrush

North Bridge would be bubbling light,
an expressionistic motion of busses,
lampposts like black trees crowned with
Caledonian fire, tall columns and clock faces
vandalized by a Peter Pan recklessness of light.

Having begun with the creamy, crested underbelly
of a hotel terrace, a fine motion,
then constructing dark implications of architecture above,
and leaving the mountains behind nothing more
than a vagueness of craggy greens.
All of this to stage the glow that conveys my emotions,

truly, like an embrace.
But I am possessed of no studio, a wordy
black ink my only medium, the scratch of
pen to page a tune that tires the ears.
And in my mind the desire of a wet city,
throbbing to be made shapely by the mind’s eye.

10.27.09