Sirens in the City

There’s a voice on the cool night air

As subtle and intoxicating as the breeze it floats on

It slices through the babbling crowd like cold steel parts warm flesh

Exquisite agony overriding the senses

Whispering a single word

That sounds like home

Freedom

And heartache

All at once

And then you hear it true—

Your name

In a form known only by one

A singular utterance, and your path unfolds

Leave these frivolous festivities

Step out into the silent street

Where the houses are cast in black and white

But for the bluish hue of the moon

Follow the zephyr of your epithet

As it flickers onto eaves and flies over rooves

To an open window where it lingers

Swirling cigarette smoke through the fingers of the inhaler

Who leans venturously far over the garden below

Stop

Have you found her?

Enchantress

Mysterious invoker of long lost moniker

Linger

Proclaim your refrain:

“O, inamorata. How your very breath bewitches my heart

Caught up in your chorus, a sailor under siren’s song

My name, how do you know? From your lips a work of art

What may I call you? To whom my soul now belongs”

But hers is not the reply you hear

Another voice, hard and human

Bids her return

A molten cherry drops

As windows snap shut

And the voice rises again

Follow the rolling resonance

Up over hill and around the bend

Where the river runs, resplendent

With the glittering lights of glass towers

Fraudulent flows, the filth obscured

Those murky waters now entrancing

Your name rolling with the waves

Guiding you down to the edge

Where your reflection does not greet you

But her

Whose gaze meets yours from fathomless depths

Whose mouth moves with the word

Beckoning

And now you know no refrain is needed

Beneath the surface lies serenity

Leave behind this modern life

All the mundanity and profanity

Slip into cool relief

Bequeath your burdens

Join us in eternal reverie

And just

Disappear