A poem by ELLIOT JAMES SMITH.
No one sleeps in this city, no one,
no one sleeps, not tonight.
Tonight we’ll listen to Zarathustra
and read the new Bible.
Tonight we’ll walk through the streets
of the Old City, though the streets,
the twisting, turning, winding, weaving streets,
and unlink all the hands that are linked
because sleeplessness is found in solitude.
Tonight we’ll kick everyone out of our beds
and leave them sat on their luggage in Sants Station
like tourists without a map, robbed of all identification
in the Ramblas, the bars or the beach.
We’ll call them Morpheus and refuse to slumber
under warm Christmas lights and Coca-Cola Santa Claus,
under shiny new blinking iPhones and bottomless beer bottles.
This night we’ll celebrate Samhain instead of Halloween
and wish the mainstream media happy Hanukkah
because our name is not Palinurus any longer
and we drowned all the Gods with indifference.
Tonight will be the unlinked blinking farewell,
farewell, farewell,
to the plane and the lights on the white wonderland cruise
farewell, farewell, we’ll say
in an Old Town alley or a train carriage
because no one sleeps in this city, no one,
no one sleeps, not tonight.
Featured image courtesy of A.M. Smythe.
