Rhapsody While Walking Home Poem by Colin Coplin

You can be so cruel, so kind, a paradox on city blocks, supremely divine
Warm as old sunshine, cold as diamonds in the fall,
Antique belleck, or double speak, a concubine to all

A cold wind's a blowing, down this empty street
Last weeks headlines, chases itself around my feet
Somewhere in the distance, a car is heard to screech
As a tired old traffic light, gives me a bloodshot wink

The silent scent of hamburger, scribbles hunger on my brain
But no neon sign's breeding life tonight, and it's about to rain

I'm alone, walking home, for the first time in nine years
Viewing scenes, of daily things, on these Renoir streets
I'm city bread, so are the books I've read, this cities a wonderful book
In her prince and pauper melody, tonight she whispers to me
As I'm walking home

Sitting sheltered in the subway reading who loved who last year
By passing the phantom poet, whose poem still sounds so clear
It was the only piece of paper I had, when I was last through here

You can be so cruel, so kind, a paradox on city blocks, supremely divine
Warm as old sunshine, cold as diamonds in the fall,
Antique belleck, or double speak, a concubine to all

"City in fear painted on the burnt out walls
Housing projects built like tombstones for the poor
God is king, Opium dropped his pants
Talking to Salvation, who knows he's only got one chance"

"Smiling is crying, it's sad to see her down
Yesterday on Bourbon Street, they say she tried to drown
While Innocent Sister remains a believer, chases another Cartland romance
They found a week later, with her mother, neither stood a chance"

"Silence yawns, in contentment his pockets now lined with gold
As TV bleeds another drop, a new soap opera coiled ready to explode
Behind the numbers on every doors, the fire escape seductively screams
While the hungry haunted heroin spikes another childhood dream"

Try and change it and they'll kill us
If we leave, then God we're damned.
Do what you can"

Break

You can be so cruel, so kind, A paradox on city blocks, supremely divine
Warm as old sunshine, Cold as diamonds in the fall,
Antique belleck, or double speak, a concubine to all

"But horror is soon forgotten, as she hold hands with Hope
As the rain falls down to cleanse the dirty ground
Rebel knows the truth

The subway's filled with tomorrow's hero's, dressed in T-Shirts of prophecy
Their masses swell like an ink blot spill, across the pages of this street directory
To reveal a brief glimpse, of a promise that leaps
Then dances like Gene Kelly, singing in the rain
As every old city block, gets re-carved by a Howard Roark
As the melody from happier days plays on the jukebox hit parade"

You can be so cruel, so kind, a paradox on city blocks, supremely divine
Warm as old sunshine, cold as diamond in the fall
A Hitchcock bird, or heaven's password, dressed in rags, or Dior
You can be so cruel, so kind, a paradox on city blocks, supremely divine

If you try and change it, then they kill us
If we leave it, then we're damned
Do what you can

Copyright Colin Coplin 2005 (updated 2023)