Tag: sober

East Hastings (day 1539)

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I watch a line slowly trace a sidewalk
Up a wide street called Hastings.
Glitter trash slipping off
Into fuzzy life lessons in a tracksuit.

I plug my nose because last nights urine party
Leaves a sour taste that makes me uneasy.
But I like the back alleys
Where life is avoided and you avoid eye contact.

Alley walls make me think.
I look at them wondering how many years it’s been
Since the last painting was applied.
How much more graffiti can be tolerated
Before a shop owner thinks they have a more alluring color.

I stay clear of crowds gathering at bus stops.
They loiter and litter,
And ask bus drivers for free fares,
Assuming they’re sober enough to acknowledge
The annoyed union worker.

I’m not afraid to lock my bike here though.
I know the game enough to know when to be walking
Hand in hand with a lover who’s [not] scared.
I know my way home and I’ve got the good places marked.

Trembling Fog (day 1281)

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There was a fog,
An “I can barely open my eyes
And the cool glasses aren’t just for show”
Kind of fog.
It started circling round my brain
Then slowly moved south towards
Innermost feelings and dire consequences
Like some kind of fire truck
Of intentions, aware and sober
And fighting the repercussions
Of a long lonely night spent hanging on
To old blues songs from the heart.
This fog did not reside in an empty bottle,
This was the sober realization of
Thirty something with a cross eyed and
Hair brained idea,
Shifting from left to right,
Idling on those soft hands full
Of dermatologically recommended’s best.
And that was the fog so thick
Sunglasses were required.

Walking Tall (day 1028)

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He walked away and he wasn’t walking tall
He shrouded and hunkered;
Fixed and determined and leaving.
Under one arm was clutched a notebook
Used regularly for scribblings and incidentals,
The other held nothing:
Bare, sober, exposed.
Not waving or weighing, but tucked neatly inside
A warm and worn pocket
Reserved for the odd receipt.
But mostly for his hand, unconsciously scrunched
Into a ball that hardly swayed
As his slouch carried him away.

 

London - 052012 (79 of 302)

Acceptance (day 903)

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I am not the victim
Left hopeless in a pool of filth and inert shame
Wrong-doing receiver
Sad story and bitter ending

I am not the sufferer
Helplessly alone
Victim of circumstance
Aimless desires

I am not the casual
Random associations
Uninterestingly passive
Head down and walking

I am not the sober
Outcast
Big eyes and wide mouth
Annoyed

I am not yesterday
A lost wish
Crimson sunset
Or memories

I am acceptance

Athens - 092012 (36 of 411)

Athens (day 894)

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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)

Fall (day 812)

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I lost that feeling deep within the cavernous region of my lonely heart
When the holy sun set upon the western banks of euphoria
My fingers crawled with memories over burning sand shifting away time
Like Mother Nature’s wiles as summer turns to fall
Leaves challenging gravity to a duo, a fate well known to man
Fruits come to spoil and nights come to close amongst sober flight
Silently and diligently animals march their way with instincts
Into warmer climes and distant hills, far off ponds of migration
Flocks and herds and pods and groups and hibernation
With the great cycle of life: life and death and birth and age
And here I sit: legs crossed with my third eye alert
Searching amongst the birch trees and clovers for only that which comes
Without forced determination, without abrupt distraction
As the harvest moon breaches the young evenings virginity
And the lone coyote sings a song of love into the cool night air

Riga - 201209 (400 of 605)

One Day Baby (day 454)

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Some days you dance through still motions that float by
Dreaming in a sober state of consciousness
Gambling love with light with strange verses of mystical poetry
One day baby, one day

Midnight then and sweet calling from the other side of the bed
You move boulders baby and light up the tallest buildings
You change me like ice chases rivers; pure delight
One day baby, one day

Just as stars wave their goodbyes and pull into sun
Music turns to repeat and landslides stop spinning
Bottles drying up on the floor that never sits still
One day baby, one day

Ghosts now pass the clear blue horizon that stretches lazily over the hue
Wracking memories that have flushed away heat
Settling in for the long car ride home now that the winds died down
One day baby, one day