Shadows On A Downtown Wall Poem by Patrick O'Reilly

The cages clatter close over the shop windows
On the claustrophobic streets
(Jammed, dimes apart) .
Shopkeeps sweep over daily dust
Into the lights brightened
From the thin crack below the bardoor.

Traffic moves like snakes,
Slithering around bends
Between sidewalks,
Prowling.

The shadows on the wall
Stand static and strange,
Swallowing the jagged brick
Of ragged centuries walls,
Hiding away the lines scrawled
By countless nameless poets,
And cloak the entire town in dusk.

All but the spotlight
Of the streetlamp.