Songs At 4 Am Poem by Chris Zachariou

It's the twentieth of December.
I wander around the streets searching
for the stairway back to us in Little Venice.

Lovers mingle on the bridge,
they hold hands in bars and small cafés
and small boats glisten on the water.

In your haste to be the Avant-Garde queen,
you denied me three times before the morning
and each time you grew more distant.

'There will never be another premiere, '
the master of ceremonies cries at noon
and the minstrel strums his chords at 4 am
nailing me to the stave in every minor scale.

The black limousines are now waiting
outside my door and the red carpet is frayed
and scarred, but still, I hide behind the curtain
yearning for a glimpse of your fragrant life.

It's cold today in Little Venice and the light
is fading fast; Christmas will be here in five
short days and then an endless bleak winter.
Numb, I sit by the water scribbling muddled
verses about the jigsaw piece still missing.