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The City of Churches greets the shrouded pink ozone
spires raised in hosanna, waiting for the pious
while the bars have gone underground,
burrowing where it’s warm and dark.

The Indigenous stir from drinking their spirit away,
smudges in the green park-lands, hidden from Light’s Vision,
clinging to torn blankets, the last of their ancestry.

Traffic lights hum in the mist cloaked air
warming up for their repeat performance.

When the sun breaks past the hills and paints
the City Center silver, the first cars of the day venture out.
As the air warms the scent of earth is replaced by metal.

Seagulls serenade lunchtime patrons, hoping to be paid
in scraps, wary of the flicked cigarette butt.
Never visited the sea or tasted fish, they quilt the cityscape
in Celtic knots, winging above the traffic,
floating on the thermals of exhaust fumes.

Commuters stand in their personal real-estate,
playing 'Three Wise Monkeys' while drivers stuck
in traffic gesture dis-affectionately to each other.
I-Pods are a requirement for entry on public transport.

As the workers leave, the shift is replaced,
now the spires point accusingly at the charcoal tinted sky.
The ground throbs and the beat from the bars bleeds
through cracks in the ground, their neon lights
winking invitingly to the ignorant bystander.
When the door shuts behind them,
the City sighs in satisfaction.