12-27-2022, 11:16 PM
Alphaville
where the clock stopped for half an hour
and the Angels of Revolution descended
not to block the route to Paradise, but to lead us to a Utopia
not a Garden this time, but a City.
Alphaville was my home but I left it long ago
my heart broken by one of Alphaville’s daughters.
Now I have returned old and still heartbroken
to spawn these memories, to die amid the invisible wreckage
to be buried alive in the shining new Metropolis
a City no longer my home, but my Exile.
Like Nostradamus in his midnight tower
staring into a bowl filled with spring water
hypnotized by the asylum dark of stars
reflected there into visions of the future
I gaze tonight across Alphaville
see visions of my past reflected in its lights
my life is written there, a coded holograph,
in its alleys and secret paths
not yet scourged and cleansed by the Contemporary.
And if I stand in just the right spot
looking at just the right angle
I can see again my true love, my Odile
her small bodied, black-eyed, ivory skinned self
Odile, though she was never mine nor anybody’s.
She is married now, she has a child,
she looks just like everyone else.
There the vision ends, and I am left
with all that remains of my distilled dream
of Alphaville, all but emptied
by my desolate heart.
where the clock stopped for half an hour
and the Angels of Revolution descended
not to block the route to Paradise, but to lead us to a Utopia
not a Garden this time, but a City.
Alphaville was my home but I left it long ago
my heart broken by one of Alphaville’s daughters.
Now I have returned old and still heartbroken
to spawn these memories, to die amid the invisible wreckage
to be buried alive in the shining new Metropolis
a City no longer my home, but my Exile.
Like Nostradamus in his midnight tower
staring into a bowl filled with spring water
hypnotized by the asylum dark of stars
reflected there into visions of the future
I gaze tonight across Alphaville
see visions of my past reflected in its lights
my life is written there, a coded holograph,
in its alleys and secret paths
not yet scourged and cleansed by the Contemporary.
And if I stand in just the right spot
looking at just the right angle
I can see again my true love, my Odile
her small bodied, black-eyed, ivory skinned self
Odile, though she was never mine nor anybody’s.
She is married now, she has a child,
she looks just like everyone else.
There the vision ends, and I am left
with all that remains of my distilled dream
of Alphaville, all but emptied
by my desolate heart.