Sketches of City Life

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The sketches of city life,

A cup of black coffee

staring blanking at the glimmering sky.

A young lady cycles with flower bouquets on her cycle basket—

crimsons, yellows, whites struggle;

a chilling wind shivers the window grills. 

The procession of colors through the window

leaves a bunch of tales near his writing table—

The old, lone writer who loves wildflowers.

A sudden shower of rain

washes away the suppressed cries;

The untold stories remain masked.


Restless mankind stirs the coffee—

Wide, shuffling, smiling oddly.

The sunshine slips through the tall buildings,

Dreamy sighs fill the morning.

The footsteps of schoolchildren

in deep blue uniform,

The ticking of the clock as the car horns,

louder and louder and louder.

Smoke fills the city,

an old scooter moving past a tree

that stands alone all morning,

a witness of this small city.


When these roads tell rusted tales

of smoke-filled hearts and their odd lives,

The way they whispered, the way they cried,

And how this town remained unknown,

when the moonbeam, after a lot of struggles, kissed her brow—

A crying candle inside a glass.


The poetries that fill the songs of the school children;

The happy sighs of the flower girl;

The flowing messages down the poet's spine and up to his fingers;

The blank stare of the coffee on the table disappears 

as the worn sunrays die in the damp sky.

Comes up the blue ray from the balcony,

The eyeballs blue, the eyebrows knitted together,

A young girl with earphones plugged in,

as her fingers went tapping and scrolling—

She's forgotten the world around her.


Some words remain unsaid, some inside this dying heart

as the old writer struggles to light the last candle.

Pages of his notepad were shouting in the light breeze.

The sweet petrichor comes dropping by,

peeking at every house,

and brightening the dark silence.


Look at the mirror,

The candle's about to blow out.

A faint early evening ray

through the apartment's window

lights up your bare, cold feet.

The shower of rain has washed away the dirt;

The black and white sketches of the gray lives of brittle hearts.

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