6 a.m. in Brussels

6 a.m. in Brussels

21 October 2019

jp melville

Sleep, city, sleep…

Like any other city, sleep…

Your day starts too early…

This 6 a.m. in Brussels

Swish of tires on wet pavement…

Black dawn creeping into grey sky…

Like any hotel…

I hear the creak of doors…

Footsteps trod lightly across a floor above…

A woman raises her dry loined voice in anger in the room next door…

Elsewhere heads heavy with drink lie abandoned on pillows…

Kitchen staff yawning prep in a basement with croissants and chocolate and eggs benedict…

A bed creaks in rhythm a couple rocking to their wander lust…

Outside a tram stops dings then rolls on gentle thunder rumbles even to my feet upon the floor…

A red umbrella plods along the street lone soul en route somewhere come to go…

Pavement, concrete, metal poles, wall to wall buildings arise in dawning light

Car numbers slowly multiply

Like any city always was were will be

So long as we preside on earth in stature dominant

No different from Belgium here built on empire Zaire’s blood, sweat, and tears

Hierarchy forever embedded

Then rubber copper coffee and more

Now financial export trade manufacture controls

We walk mesmerized by idols our eyes and tongues attract

Statues and paintings and palaces and brasseries and chocolates

Our selves reflected in all we adore…

Yes, we wake from sleep

Stain our hotel sheets

Seek out coffee

Then walk the cobbled streets

Even while dawn arises

Like any city anywhere

With circles of history cinched around our sight and minds

We see experience nothing new

Perhaps we never wake at all

We sleep, city sleeps

Before at past forever 6 a.m. in Brussels.