Hometown

Flattened streets and yellowed curbs

in dry heat that only you possess,

that bakes your skin before it sweats,

I feel the endless drift of years, spent here.

You hold every happy moment in your crisp shell.

My life's clarion bell.

all that's familiar to a subtle heart,

and yet I want to stand apart, from you.

Adelaide, little city where I was born,

where I got played, I loved and lost.

The place that spawned my gypsy soul,

and yet still holds me in its thrall.

Schoolgirl winters of gloves and hats.

Blazer-braced against the wind

that whistled with the moving trains

into town and home again, the same.

The autumns full of golden glows,

of troubled adolescent prose,

the time alone and time with friends,

the struggle to feel free descends.

Springs that promised more than this,

that hinted at a world outside,

when circumstance and bitter fruit,

came together and conspired,

to keep me here in Adelaide,

this refuge and this tower.

A place I know I yearn to leave,

a place in which I stayed.