dirty streets

We'd never know what lay beneath

the glistening snow,

the rumpled sheets,

until the joy revealed the grief

on dirty, dirty streets.

With Aprils lie of winter gone,

belaboured sighs,

forgotten songs,

I swore I wouldn't walk so long

these dirty, dirty streets.

The fissures in the sidewalks show

the way our separation grows,

the freezing silence:

friend turned foe

on dirty, dirty streets.

Trails of discarded cigarettes

which lie under each place I step,

it's here that I will place my bets

on dirty, dirty streets.

My bet is that your dam will break,

I pray you scream it in my face,

and there I'd meet you

unafraid,

on these dirty, dirty streets.

*************************************************************

"APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers. .....

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust." - T.S Eliot, The Wasteland - 1922