Night City Poem by Emdad Shah Emdad

by Emdad Shah

I am a sailor—before me lies a kingdom strange and vast
A city veiled in shadow, a beauty unsurpassed
How wondrous, how fair, with a charm that holds the soul
Where shimmering lights and melodies in rhythmic currents roll
From afar it beckons, a dream of phantom grace
A million sparks that hold me in a fixed and silent gaze
In wonder lost, I tremble, bathed in a strange and sudden light
Where towers rise to heaven, piercing the velvet night
They call to me, they summon, ever closer, near and deep
While in the nocturnal glow
the city's pulse begins to leap

Beside the surging ocean, where the city's heart of stone
Lies heavy with a longing that the weary have always known
Along the paths of memory, the ancient customs tread
While motor-lamps light up the ways where epic tales are spread
O City, well I know that slumber shuns your restless eyes
I know the quiet never comes, beneath your heavy skies
The ocean-roar of traffic, the clamor of the street
Will never let you rest, where the tides of iron meet
Within your hollow bosom, where shadows deeply lie
The marks of bitter sorrow beneath the stars pass by
No respite for your spirit, no drifting into sleep
As coils of burning embers through your dark corridors creep
The cars like maddened cattle go screaming through the gloom
Your senses stir and quicken, defying silent doom
In truth, you know no slumber, though the bricks and mortar rest
The human soul is wakeful, with a burden in its breast
Sleepless and immortal, O capital of fire
You stand in restless beauty
the heart of all desire.

I stepped down from the vessel, to a café of the age
Where neon-yellow flickered on a twentieth-century stage
I sat in lonely silence, with coffee in my hand
And pondered on the secrets of this strange and shifting land
The tram-lines wandered off into the depot's dark retreat
While shadows claimed the echoes of the lonely, empty street
I saw the figures standing, by the railings, still and tall
And you were there among them, the brightest of them all
Amidst the artificial glare, the grand and gaudy show
You shone with such a radiance as only stars might know
The city's roaring ocean, the lamps of sickly gold
The walls of stone and iron—all faded as you told
A tale of silent beauty, in a moment snatched from time
A stillness in the chaos, a pause within the rhyme
The benches in the garden, the asphalt dark and wide
The flashing of the lanterns where the revelers abide
The wine, the dance, the glitter—all marks of mortal pride
Were lost beneath your brilliance where the heaven-stars reside.

This is the city of the night, where flesh and gold are sold
Where statues stand in nakedness, and blood is bought and bold
Where men in frenzied revelry seek pleasure in the spark
And tell of phantom dreams that vanish in the dark
The electric lights are weaving a web of thin deceit
And sleep is but a luxury that few may hope to meet

This city never slumbers; when the dark begins to fall
It draws its heavy curtains close, and holds the heart in thrall
From the cornice of the rooftop, the moon is seen entire
While the street-eyes watch in wakefulness, burning with desire It is no grave of silence, no tomb of quiet breath
Its map of night is haunting, a love as cold as death
The city draped in half-light
in shadow and in gleam
Like a crescent moon suspended in the middle of a dream—
As the autumn moon in glory above the village height
So rests this urban phantom within the shroud of night

The darkness settles softly upon the streets I know
Where light and shadow mingle in a dim and steady flow
When factory chimneys quieten, and the weary day is done
The city wakes from ashes, beneath no rising sun
I know it sings of riches, of luxury and pride
And of the hungry children who on the pavement bide

Yet stars look down in silence
with eyes that never close
As if to speak a language that only longing knows