Oh Lahore
How I long for your haveli lined streets
Ramshackle buildings
Impossibly built upon built
Teetering over the streets of squalor
And splendour and colour and wonder
Each story enveloped
How I long to know them all
Always so more vivid on reflection
Or is it?

So distant is your solace
Shipwrecked upon these shores
Unwelcoming, hostile streets
Not even a fleeting glimmer
Smiles and pretending
With all the lovely types
Educated racists and fuckwits
Who queue for food and thrills
Small town thinking and tail chasing
Those who run for the light
But away from the warmth
Run for the embrace
But find cold barren earth
Unable to locate the source
Perhaps I should share
But leave less for me
And those deserving
Not those who don’t

The electronic thump
Pulsating behind the wall
It’s hard not to imagine
Standing in streets perfectly laid out
Where order negates life
Making the right choices
Running daily battles
Where the air claws at my face
Pricks at my attenuated existence
White picket fences and an alcoholic wife
Aren’t we all addled
Into thinking we’re happy?

Evergreen Lahore
how I miss you so
With just 157
days to go…