A Man In The City Poem by Gert Strydom

In the distance a church bell rings off the midnight hour
and where the night tries to fold her cloak around the city
I am lonely driving a motorcar

and streetlights, neon signs and traffic lights light up the roadway
but there is no darkness and everywhere around me its twilight grey,
a high apartment building is on fire

with fire-engines with flashing red lights that are rush to it
while a crowd of onlookers are watching the scene with interest
and here and there a couple that lives in it stands astonished

when in the distance the chimneys at a petroleum structure flame blue-white,
and I see the bright white fire of melting ovens
when I am tired and far pass fatigued

while I am busy driving back to my home in one of the suburbs
and now do not trust the tilting landscape, lights that rush pass
and nowhere there is a place of rest to be found.