Wroclaw by Night

Night populates the city,
black ink spilling over pavements,
splashing quiet corners,
filling squares and parks, water-
falling down the riverbank,
soaking a couple as they hurry
from one
island of sodium light
to another,
across the Love Bridge,
an anchor for younger hearts
padlocked to railings.

On the far bank,
night is celebrated
with a candle-cake
of orange and white:
flames of churches and high-rises;
lanterns on bridges
rising one behind another
like mountain ridges;
lights trailed by cars
as they bounce off cobbles
and the illuminated windows
of trams rattling on their tracks.

© Kim M. Russell, 2016

wroclaw-by-night

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Night-time Panorama

I am hosting this week’s Poetics challenge: to write a poem about a city at night, using the photograph as a starting point. We can write about our own cities, one we’ve visited or lived in previously, a city we would love to go to or just write about what we can see in the picture. But it must be at night.

30 thoughts on “Wroclaw by Night”

    1. Thank you, Björn. Although I returned on Saturday, the city is still there in my head, it made such an impression on me. I have so much more to write about it, I hope I don’t bore the pants off everyone!

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  4. I love the imagery of the black ink spilling, island of sodium light and celebration of candle cake in orange and white ~
    This city comes alive with your pen Kim ~ Thank you for the wonderful challenge ~

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    1. Wroclaw is quite a dark place – their street lights are old-fashioned lantern ones and the light is orange-yellow. I wasn’t sure if the photographs would turn out OK and I had to use a little computer trickery on some of them!

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  12. Hi.. Kim..
    City liGhts
    are nice but here
    not as colorful as beach
    niGhts.. what i really love
    mosT iS diatoms
    iN Summer
    sAlt water of
    Gulf Ocean
    EvEnings where
    sand exists beyond
    toes to dreAms of
    love as
    shore
    lines wash
    humans togEtheR mOre..:)

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  14. Pingback: Padlocked Hearts – writing in north norfolk

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