Athens (day 894)

I remember it there
A different kind of cement
Patch work
And cracks that weren’t cracks
And hand made fences of stones
Clearly crooked
But placed with utmost care
While the roads
Not the big North American style
But built for horse and cart
Slower traffic
Pequeño
While flower boxes teetered
On hooks and ledges
One hundred years old
And steep stair
That went to the top of a hill
Around a park
Upon which locals sat at night
Mingling in casual groups
Drinking in the streets
Setting off the busker’s alarm
Where on all the walls
All the buildings
All the staircases
Any last bit of exposed canvas
Was graffiti
Skulls, gas masks
Political hate
Grotesque mottos
Dreamed characters
And warm nights
I would walk down to my favorite café
Sit and talk to a cute girl
Excited I was foreign
A beautiful woman
With a foreign tongue to me
An exotic look to me
Serving me free shots of Rum
As I ate the complimentary peanuts
And commented on the quotes
Littered around the walls
I was a revolutionary with a fine perch
And the misfigured man
With an eye for a cheekbone
And a snarl for the other
Like those suspicious eyes yelled
But the kind soul he was
A political radio DJ
In a time past its prime
With an uphill walk home
And fuzzy contemplation
Past gas masks
Boys up to no good
Parked scooters
And the upstairs neighbors
Fucking all day
And especially all night
The sounds
First night there I thought
The sounds came from an alley cat
Never before
With a torrential heat
Driving any sober thoughts
Out the window
Sinking into the gay fellows bed
But the shower was nice
A clean house
A cheap house
In a beautiful city
Filled with angst
Sunk so deep
It poured out of eyelashes
It poured onto the streets
It fell out of cars
It was raised upon signs
It was marched along
It was a memory

Athens - 092012 (156 of 411)

Transformations (day 500)

Searching and crawling through these empty streets
They call my name but I heed them no attention
Memories caught up in my thoughts like tumbleweeds in a corner
Hot water failing to warm my shaking bones
Sunlight stretching into the corners my toes fail to remain
And I cry with streaking mascara and ugly sobs
Deeply lamenting the loss of all that’s been known
Holding onto something that’s simply figurative

And then, like a slowly falling leaf from the nearby tree
A quiet calm flows over the angst and tremors
Little sparks of light gather at the tips of my toes
My brow begins to smooth as I close my eyes and smile
Children playing comes into focus
And the tea smells just as it should
A transformation undergoes just as the turning of seasons
And the lightness of my steps