NOCTURNE

Here in the foreground,
Black, silver and blue,
Slates glint with the frost.
Further back, churches
Spire up in starlight.
See the chimneys curl
And the rooftops slant
So sensually
On those hard angles
Of smokestacks and walls
With dark curtains drawn,
In the street below.
Observe now, midground,
The vague huddled figure
In a dark trench-coat,
Hurrying along
The moonlit cobbles,
Just past that street lamp.
See it hesitate
At some sharp corner.
Does it move toward
A familiar hearth,
Out of the cold night;
Or will it proceed,
Further on outward
Into the background
Of a destiny
Yet to crystallize,
Black, silver and blue,
In the icy dawn?

 

(2012)

Another one that came very quickly after I’d been looking at a photograph of a Prague roofscape by the Czech photographer, Josef Sudek who I discovered recently. The poem is by no means a literal description of the picture – it might just as easily recall scenes from the film noir, ‘ The Third Man’ – but it was the original point of departure.

 

The picture is one of a set of four that we bought from a photographer (not Sudek) who had a stall on the Charles Bridge in Prague several years ago. Interesting how all these elements come together...