Inner Workings

A lane, a courtyard, an alley,
Tracing the neurons of the city.

Firing across at intersections,
People anticipate close connections.

To a end, barred, impenetrable, gated,
A forbidden land, my existence, negated.

Nearby, a window, faces, wrapped in conversation,
Behind inconspicuous doors, oblivious to consternation.

A car giddies past down a narrow lane,
Screeching brakes halt my path, screams 'insane.'

Following behind a siren car swerves....gone,
Relief for those left, not them that done wrong.

Here's a dead building, backs turned in shame,
Foretells a complex extraction, another twist in the city's game.

I gaze as Orhan walks the streets of Istanbul  by night,
A lazy camera bobs in the daze of strange empty light.

Dogs patrol, loose fences scrape in the night-air breeze,
Istanbul floats in a box, like all cities, ill at ease.

Back in my city a woman talks to a phone in a distant tongue,
Her sleeping bag, symbolic of her place at the bottom rung.

A young couple, arm entwined, cross quickly, a furtive glance,
Contrasting disharmonies mix, urging cities to advance.