The City Sleeps

Stealing down an alley on a cold dark night
I see a halo in the rain around the streetlight
I stop and look, and listen to the sound
As the raindrops penetrate the silence, all around

Alone, I gaze into the glistening street
The distant thunder echoes my heartbeat
Urging me on to a secret goal
Away from the light from this lamp on a pole
So I turn, slip away into the rain
Drifting like a spirit through the shadows in the lane
Clutching the tools of my trade in my hand
An old box of matches and a gasoline can

Darkness envelopes the scene like a shroud
A veil of emptiness hangs from the clouds
Filling up the cracks in this desolate place
Cradled by the night in an icy embrace

And I move through the town like a ghost in the rain
A dim reflection in a dark windowpane
Blackness beckons from every side
Creeping all around like an incoming tide

A broken window in an empty house
I slip inside and begin to douse
The whole place with the fuel that will feed the fire
And push back the night, taking me higher
On out of the darkness in a deafening roar
The match in my hand is the key to the door
A simple turn of the wrist will suffice
To open a passage to paradise

I pause, I think about the past and the gloom
The smell of gasoline permeates the room
And everyone has a little secret he keeps
I light the fires while the city sleeps

The match makes a graceful arc to the floor
Time stands still as I turn for the door
Which explodes in a fireball and throws me to the street
I hit the ground running with the flames at my feet
Reaching for the night which recoils from the fire
The raindrops hiss like a devilish choir
Dying in the flames with a terrible sound
Calling all the names of the sleepers all around

But then in the arms of the night, they lay
Their dreams, sprout wings, and fly away
Out of the houses in a gathering flock
Swarming overhead as I hurry down the block
I make my escape with the greatest of ease
And safe in the darkness, I drop to my knees
The light in this window, my hand on the latch
I reach in my pocket, and pull out a match

(Elegy of innocence and youth)
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter
Robed in the long friends
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames
After the first death, there is no other