Winter sunsets are stately affairs,
Not given to extravagance
Muted yellow, trampled dandelions
Pasted across a sky, steel-gray,
Smeared with greasy clouds,
The bare side of an old engine
Sterile Day-Light abdicates to stark shadows,
Pitched infinities swallow alleys,
Heavy gloom, gathered in drifts aside the riverbank,
heralding the night to come
Screaming gales, glacial, razor sharp, bite deep,
Battered figures clutch overcoats,
Pulled taut with numbed fingers,
Faces obscured, treacherous glimpses of
Pale flesh the sole proof of life beneath wool, faded cashmere
Fresh blusters, a quicker pace,
Frantic, uneven steps carry them away,
Streets bled dry of the emptied and forlorn
The Sun is vanished, light from windows,
Street-lamps hemmed by creeping black;
the city is cold and dark in winter
