I
this city
is old,
older than jesus christ
this city
is young,
is reborn every day at 9am
this city
is old enough
to let you move
the way you want to move
this city
is young enough
to let you be
what you want to be
II
this city is a song
a pulse
a hum and crackle
a trembling
a feeling that if you stand still for too long
straddling the roads,
feeding the city,
you will be pulled in,
pulled up
burned,
turned to ash
consumed
III
this city,
a place of exits
and arrivals,
welcomes you
as you leave
IV
there's no other way of looking at it,
really
this city
is a Hotel California
kind of a place,
the hum and crackle you hear
is no different
from the current on fences
keeping the horses in
Earlier versions of “this city” have been published in the Leicester Mercury (27 February 2016) and in the anthology, Welcome to Leicester: Poems about The City (Dahlia Publishing, 2016).
