Away Too Long

There are the Great few
cities everyone knows:
Alexandria of knowledge,
Paris of love,
New York of everything,
and newer to the scene:
San Francisco of Life.
San Francisco,
broader than being,
brighter than youth;
luring closest a
a dry land version
of love for the Sea.
She is greatest
of human fires
burning upon
the edgemost end
of the West,
before the oceans
sweep and flow
across to mystery
and the eastern lights
of Orient,
and Hong Kong...
Walk all night
to drink your way
across her
past the brickwork
of centuries past
when her foggy soul
was masoned into
the hilltops,
the buildings,
the alleys
and the bayshore tracks;
where night trains made Her Sound-Complete.