Departure/Terminus

Departure

We’re different and alike
all going somewhere, soon 
to be strewn across the world.

Few of us are beautiful, I’m afraid but
my friends say my sight is out of sight
from these golden hazy days.

What is beauty even? though
I snap to.  You are beautiful,
that is all I know and all
in my dreams.

Strangers hardly speak to each other
the we-are-animals visible like never before
all foraging for a place to go home. 

Is it in our nature to say nothing?
to be aloof, yes
especially here on these teal plastic seats
sticky from the yeasty heat.

I have so many questions and
too few answers before I go.


      *            *            *            *            *

Terminus

A motherly woman
passing terminus time
an adult novel in hand
KEN FOLLETT
in letters offensive as these.

To Milan, a hungry looking girl
dark-eyed, shifty, mousy
so hungry looking it’s savage
windy hair done right
just like she was taught.

Sharp dressed Italians
wearing flat foot bottoms
husbands in tucked-in v-necks
shaded in their shades™
indoors before the gate
but it’s dark outside too
Here again, we must assume Milan.

Fresh from Duty Free
bag of booze in hand
dressed like a businessman
surreal on a Sunday
as is the likeness of tint
from leather briefcase
to leather shoes.

Some really terrible looking pajama girls
next to a man who says terrorist
heads turn to the turban
we must assume London (it is the only other stop)
then off to America.

And all other sorts of characters
passing along and around
like a parade
going somewhere soon
to be strewn
across the world.

Waterloo Sunset

After hearing this song for the first time in years, not sure quite where to locate it, I'm moved to add a special post.  I suspect the memory is buried somewhere in late childhood, wandering around car shows in West Michigan with the family when summers seemed to have no end.  

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, rolling into the night

People so busy, make me feel dizzy, taxi light shines so bright
But I don't, need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise
Every day I look at the world from my window
Chilly chilly is the evening time, Waterloo sunset's fine

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don't want to wander, I stay at home at night
But I don't, feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise
Every day I look at the world from my window
Chilly chilly is the evening time, Waterloo sunset's fine.

Millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground
Terry and Julie cross over the river where they feel safe and sound
And they don't, need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo Sunset, they are in paradise

Saturday Set

Blood and Rain - a fictional piece

The clouds opened up at the bullring
this afternoon in Madrid wind came too
blowing gusts like sheets across the streets and
sideways into the crowd.

If you think there is nothing like the smell
of late afternoon rain in the spring, like
lilacs mature in bloom
then there is just as equally
nothing like the smell
of fresh blood in wet sand.

      *            *            *            *            *

I’m Writing About You

We’ve shared a lot of sunsets
you and I, we’re contemporaries
in our time
this one no more special than the last
only documented and warmer
since I hold you closer.

We’re both happy the day is at its end -
people go home!
and you’re left glossed in a heavenly blue-gold
while I just kind of gasp at the mix
    ambient steel drum and sax
    a light foot tap with bells around your ankle
    lifting up to feathery clouds.

A stranger is curled up tight beside me
reading Ahora Yo
Now Me    some kind of self help
    she’s spanish and beautiful, and I think
    she’s been hurt before.
        I wish she’d smile.

She’s dark too.  I know those eyes
like black diamonds up close
but she maintains looking serious and sad
focused on Me
gets up and walks away.
        I just wish she’d smile.

We’re in our best hour
I, haggard and so under-slept I’m depressed
but you picking it up for both of us
with the warm hues and haze
        (paint sound like it’s light
        paint darkness like it’s cold)
my ear is exploding with the gush of a kiss
like all the beauty that is love
the rarest and most pristine thing in the world.
I imagine you all have a lot in common.

Summer Trip

Othello Dreaming Venice

Memory and Michigan

Memory and Michigan

Remembering where I’ve never been
the distance now makes memory so
dreaming like I dream these days
of that place in the summer
Empire, MI - our Empire
we built out of beach fires, friends, sand
empty beer cans
it’s all there etc, etc
clearer than our talks and laughs
all there in its best light.

Coming from the north
shooting across the night sky
whiter than the moon
hanging just above the dune
the night of the Solstice in June...
Remembering like this is blinding.
    songs by legendary fires,                  
    songs in the woods
    (you more whistling
    because you’re always bashful like that -
    even when it’s just me -
    and I howling to the sky
    up tree trunks to below the brush
    singing morels to me)
    “Like gold, fungi gold,”
    you glow
    “They taste as sweet as the forest!”
I can still see the look on your face
among the wreckage of memory
like trilliums scattered
fragments across a deep green forest floor
when was the last time
we built such an empire? you wonder.

The sound of sand blowing across sand
is the sound of nothing.
You know, the pictures are there:
digitized, hard-drived, memorized
burnt in like cigarette spots on the beach
at the end of the night.
We wrote this story before
although I can’t quite remember
how it goes.

History

History
Locke/Geiger

On the banks of the Vlatava
flowing out of Prague
ships coming in, ships coming out
   
    brought people down its banks
    all those voices bobbing up and on by
    sediments, glass, metal,
    other forms of growth too sick to think about.
    Swaying on the river bed.

On the banks of the Vlatava
dancing to Saint-Saëns, who
plays a dance-tune 
Zig, zig, zig, on his violin.

Above in the sun (On the banks of the Vlatava)
people scurry back and forth
taking the same shots from this end and the other
   
    forward and behind pictures
    to last a lifetime pictures
    and pictures of people with cameras raised
    in silence or laughing, pictures.

But not like the silence ON THE BANKS OF THE VLATAVA
the night before, natural silence
crossing the Charles Bridge
opposite this bank
after the laughing and rollicking and
living like we’ll never die.

Morning Song

In the morning when light is once again new
another strange night of dreaming is over
black and white, Captain of a mutinous crew
only a single frame I remember.

Leading a ship over mountains in Mallorca
instead of the sea
faces I had known all my life
rising up against me
what can it mean, will it come to be
in future tomorrows
when mornings aren't as bright
as the sight of
love's old smile?

I can't say I care much
alone on this island like the Mars rover
leader of none, these high seas are rocks now
and I'm just glad that the night is over.