night and the city
Heading to my car.
I glance from one of the upper windows at the College of Surgeons carpark.
The window is ajar.
I can scent the Autumnal air, cold with the firstlings of Winter.
I stand still and behold the city.
A jumble of buildings in discordant styles jostle each other towards the horizon.
The Council flats, social housing built in the 1960's, rise up like children's lego on my left.
A knot of children sit and stand and sprawl around the swings in the play area, chatting in the half dark.
I bless them.
The ghost of Patrick Kavanagh appears beside me.
"They are the ghosts of children," says Kavanagh pointing, "whose children are long since dead."
Some rough looking rental apartments rise up directly in front of me.
At one stage these would have been townhouses belonging to the wealthy.
The most sought after properties in Dublin they were.
Erected in the cutting edge style of nouvelle squalor a generation before the socialists arrived.
A cluster of signs essay grandiosity amid the squalor, proclaiming the defiance of shop keepers in the face of bleak urban decay.
Bow Lane, shouts one sign.
J Williams, insists a second.
Neither feels the need to elaborate further.
I think maybe Bow Lane is a recording studio.
A recording studio with atmosphere ya might say.
BDO Simpson Xavier, thunders a third sign.
The third is the only one to be lit up electronically in tacky neon as befits one of Ireland's best known criminal enablers of corrupt financial institutions.
I mean I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns.
The BDO building elbows its way into the vista from my right, towering higher than the socialist lego land and the rental apartments.
An additional painted sign beneath the neon claims: Fully Let.
Yeah.
And if you believe that sign, I have a bridge to sell you.
A cluster of vans are parked chaotically on the double yellow lines outside the Bow Lane premises.
Young rockers rehearsing into the night.
Who knows.
The next big things.
The wind swirls anew.
Orange street lamps hover.
My heart skips a beat.
"My God," I breathe. "It's so beautiful."
I glance from one of the upper windows at the College of Surgeons carpark.
The window is ajar.
I can scent the Autumnal air, cold with the firstlings of Winter.
I stand still and behold the city.
A jumble of buildings in discordant styles jostle each other towards the horizon.
The Council flats, social housing built in the 1960's, rise up like children's lego on my left.
A knot of children sit and stand and sprawl around the swings in the play area, chatting in the half dark.
I bless them.
The ghost of Patrick Kavanagh appears beside me.
"They are the ghosts of children," says Kavanagh pointing, "whose children are long since dead."
Some rough looking rental apartments rise up directly in front of me.
At one stage these would have been townhouses belonging to the wealthy.
The most sought after properties in Dublin they were.
Erected in the cutting edge style of nouvelle squalor a generation before the socialists arrived.
A cluster of signs essay grandiosity amid the squalor, proclaiming the defiance of shop keepers in the face of bleak urban decay.
Bow Lane, shouts one sign.
J Williams, insists a second.
Neither feels the need to elaborate further.
I think maybe Bow Lane is a recording studio.
A recording studio with atmosphere ya might say.
BDO Simpson Xavier, thunders a third sign.
The third is the only one to be lit up electronically in tacky neon as befits one of Ireland's best known criminal enablers of corrupt financial institutions.
I mean I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns.
The BDO building elbows its way into the vista from my right, towering higher than the socialist lego land and the rental apartments.
An additional painted sign beneath the neon claims: Fully Let.
Yeah.
And if you believe that sign, I have a bridge to sell you.
A cluster of vans are parked chaotically on the double yellow lines outside the Bow Lane premises.
Young rockers rehearsing into the night.
Who knows.
The next big things.
The wind swirls anew.
Orange street lamps hover.
My heart skips a beat.
"My God," I breathe. "It's so beautiful."
posted by heelers | 8:54 PM
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