Why Didn’t I See Your Eyes

Why didn’t I see your eyes?

Still I tried
For this vision I haven’t found
And your browns, greens,
Forever changing
As landscape’s seasons change
And my footsteps
Through my soul’s golden copse
Recapturing.

Why didn’t I see your eyes?

Even though my feet are as tired
As cobblestoned history,
Gray hair grows upon my patience’s mind
Though burdened with none but thoughts
It is mine golden copse
Retiring into my hallow
That comforts even in
My burning question’s fever.

Why didn’t I see your eyes?

Between The Lines

I miss the nights
That line up
In the new part of an old city
Where street lights feel like rain
On cooler summer night
And my homeward spin
Takes me from a warm crowded room
Onto cobblestones
That echo from my engine
Roaring to life
In spite the effort
I have put
Into making the right moves
And swaying between the lines.

Beirut (day 2721)

Every time I hear of the city Beirut
I dream of what dreams are made of
There are city lights that wave at me
With a luminosity that cuts through my being
Little chairs with patrons chilling
In a modality unknown to me
But harming with smiles
That feel half drunk and half alive.
My feet rattle off ancient cobblestones
On the better walks of town
But I find the dead alleys
And imagine how many eyes are watching me.
I have companions here
Who sing with instruments only found
Along this edge of the world
And in Gypsy caravans roaming the deadlands.
My lover sleeps with the curtains open
And silk pyjamas that are usually draped
Upon the wooden chair that’s older than I
She burns a scent I can only find here
With old books I cannot read
But admire the covers and the ghosts within
She kisses with a heavy lip
And smiles with a curious snarl
That keeps me here dreaming.

Dusting Ferns (day 2633)

Walking hides my feelings,
Like a good turn on the wrong road.
I’ve shaven all my eyebrows clean
And recited fifteen lines of poetry
From Edgar Allen Poe;
So I don’t lie here alone
As dusk settles
I lie here with Gothic mansions
And morbid expressions
Upon cobblestone roads
And lampposts casting awkward glances.
Faint sounds infiltrate
My active imagination
Leaving goosebumps
Chanting spell bound rhythms
Into my sandy shoes
Lightly dusting the ferns
That play havoc
On the rose of my thought
Exploding into the diary of this pain
I have left behind again.

Moonlit Spell (day 2563)

I came into the firelight when
The moon hollered my name
Whispered into my ear
Little memories I’d long forgotten
Spoke of a journey through the mist
Of a far off island adventure
A dog for a companion
Who chased away the ghosts.

There were streets of cobblestones
In an old quarter of an ancient town
Where whispers followed me,
I watched ghosts in their wagons go
And sat motionless in firelight
Dancing to and fro
Lost in reverie
Sunken into moonlight’s deepest spell.

Midnight Rubies (day 2277)

She had rubies that dangled down
To the hips that stole each heart
Cigarette was midnight in each look
She cast into the night.
She called to a lover down on the street
Who looked up and knew her name
He said: “My dear how are you there?
It has been a long long time.”
Then off into the night the taxi rolled away
And two strangers emerged
Locked arm in arm as they strolled.
She had rubies that dangled down
To the hips that stole each heart
And as she walked around her room
A record playing a good song
She pretended she was dancing at a ball
In a lost time, enchanted
She thought about writing a letter to
A friend she’d never met.
She had rubies that dangled down
To the hips that stole each heart
And every time she she shared her name
It changed into a vision
That soon wafted into the night
And all around was cobblestones
An empty café unattended though open
Where, listening, the open windows
Learned her every midnight name.

Still Life in the Window (day 1970)

Raindrops set the mood
On an open Thursday night,
Songs reverberated callusedly
Against a faint rattle
Hardly heard under the crash
Of elephant hoof raindrops
Where the marksman’s twang
Nearly captured,
Patiently awaiting amidst a
Two pane dust memory
With a perfect view
Of empty hopes;
A thin cobblestone path
Weaves its way
Amidst falling whitewashed fencepoats
And tufts of sheep fodder
With eager gumboots
Avoiding eye contact
With our token warrior
Next to a thimble and needle
And a postcard received yesterday.

The Boxer (day 1933)

You were a boxer
Every Thursday night
After Big Jim’s Saloon
Took a bottle and you
Out to a cobblestone night.
A muffled mind with intention,
Fireworks covered in mud,
And a slow slur that wound up
Like Roadrunner
Walking a tightrope,
The top rope
Of a dark, four cornered ring.
You liked the big city
Because your slow down
Never coincided with a dead end.
Your betting days
Flashed jackpot on your bedroom wall:
Red, green, and yellow.
And your highschool sweetheart
Hung alone on peeling paper
That crackled back at you
As you walked naked
From your bedroom
To a comfortable routine
You knew so well.

Most Likely Chance (day 1922)

Who’s got that hat on the floor?
Someone’s burning at the other end
Smoke trails and it’s begun
For the last of the cobblestones have shattered
Into night’s mystery, coo-coo, coo-coo.

Though one long sidewalk dance
Let it be called a clean romance
Cigarette’s burning down some more
Her eyes still singing forever in implore.

Judged like the colour of pure milk
A canvas rolled into the corners ilk
While every patron danced around the room,
Spilled wine and tossed off shoes
And pearls upon every hearted romance,
As art, given at most likely chance.

Cobblestones & Family (day 1454)

Laughing at imaginations that crisply punctuated my effortless circles of family, I crossed the path that led me to inevitability. It was here I sat down tired.
To my dismay, I was greeted by an understanding gesture that pickled my sentence with freshness beyond the cucumber, but all was not lost for I had a scapegoat.

Yet as I spoke my attention was caught, to which I followed down steps towards heavenly waterfalls to meet a pure maiden who took me by the hand and lightly led me across cobblestone walkways towards the utopia I had come to know and love.

So my imagination left me, and I was greeted by a hand of sincerity and kindness which knew my full name and hugged me as I came. I then carried on, for around me was family, and I was the same.