City Lights

city lights in a city night sparkle
like stars in a concrete sky.
silent and subtle, showy,
windows of curtained glass,
tinted blue and red with gods and flowers,
bulging halos round the city's shadows,
shrouding a room from another
and keeping a night outside.
city lights are steady and silent
and as adamant as the dead
crickets and moths that dot 
their thousand and thousand hues -
and once and twice a man will peep out
to look out, out at the city
that's the same in all directions -
simmering under its blood red sky.
city lights create the empty streets
dark and desolate by their absence -
hairy mice scuttle in the corner lines
with the hurry of a robber
and an office-goer,
a homeless man sleeps in a shadow
and a dead man within him
awaiting the lights for resurrection.
city lights rule over the desert
of rowdy buildings and towers
and they zoom in and out
with the party music and hubbub,
the crowds of sulking citymen
in a vitriolic air of hush and quiet
going about on their ways
to become creatures of the light.