Along it went,
taking me through its roller coaster path
curving and zig-zagging,
ears ringing with the roaring heartbeats
I reached high above
raising my arm, I touched the giant moon
I sweeped through the roof dust,
watched the drama on the tenth level living room,
tried reaching the high oars of the boatmen
every turn, every movement loving my curiosity.
A sweet boatman ushered me on
"You will see a whole new world" he promised
moving gently along the narrow blue
I look up with awe
a sudden dash of a 3D movie feel,
the bridges and stairways rushed into me...
I smiled along...taking it in.
I see them coming up,
late evenings, their dark eyes from the hell
big-eyed, I follow
into the dark tunnels of crookedness,
they did not love my curiosity as the heavens did
Terror!
I run,
but now the heavens seemed to have vanished!
the meandering pathways confusing..
I scream out
and up ahead I see the boatman
Relieved, I ran upto him..
the dark eyes disappeared in the darkness.
Later inside by the warmth and an expresso,
the boatman says
"here is the whole new world I promised!"
If you want to read about Esmeralda from Invisible Cities..here u go..
ReplyDeleteMarco Polo the traveller describes to Emperor Kublai Khan about the cities he has travelled to..
TRADING CITIES 5
In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and
intersect each other. To go from one place to another you have always the choice
between land and boat: and since the shortest distance between two points in
Esmeralda is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional
routes, the ways that open to each passerby are never two, but many, and they
increase further for those who alternate a stretch by boat with one on dry land.
And so Esmeralda’s inhabitants are spared the boredom of following the same
streets every day. And that is not all: the network of routes is not arranged on
one level, but follows instead an up-and-down course of steps, landings, cambered
bridges, hanging streets. Combining segments of the various routes, elevated or on
ground level, each inhabitant can enjoy every day the pleasure of a new itinerary
to reach the same places. The most fixed and calm lives in Esmeralda are spent
without any repetition.
Secret and adventurous lives, here as elsewhere, are subject to greater
restrictions. Esmeralda’s cats, thieves, illicit lovers move along higher,
discontinuous ways, dropping from a rooftop to a balcony, following gutterings
with acrobats’ steps. Below, the rats run in the darkness of the sewers, one
behind the other’s tail, along with conspirators and smugglers: they peep out of
manholes and drainpipes, they slip through double bottoms and ditches, from one
hiding place to another they drag crusts of cheese, contraband goods, kegs of
gunpowder, crossing the city’s compactness pierced by the spokes of underground
passages.
A map of Esmeralda should include, marked in different coloured inks, all
these routes, solid and liquid, evident and hidden. It is more difficult to fix on
the map the routes of the swallows, who cut the air over the roofs, dropping long
invisible parabolas with their still wings, darting to gulp a mosquito, spiralling
upwards, grazing a pinnacle, dominating from every point of their airy paths all
the points of the city.