Cobalt skies tonight
Ripping through late summer memories
With little twinkling gremlins
And Grandma’s favorite afghan.
A sky so deep
Hearts are instantaneously ripped out
And thrown in sacrifice
Towards all that could ever be.
Where is a soul that cannot hold
A forevermore deep within
Silhouetted bits of a city
That can never sleep.
A valley, like my mind, may look empty on the inside – void of all that makes up matter. Void of all the mass that builds houses and factories and city roads and flower gardens and traffic jams.
For cannot this still matter? I am lost in a wasted land, and the fight challenges my patience along grated edges of wisdom.
Do you hear the sharp bells ringing? Is this the difference that is ringing, or has freedom finally called my name?
The sheath shall sadly fall apart, ragged from too much use like a cocktail napkin at a lipstick party. History shall not scream loudly here. This is not the bitter pages of a non-fiction picture book.
Here we have wrinkled tin garbage cans rolling lifelessly along unkempt lawns of former princes’, former glory holes that believed in a dream. A lifeless dream built on waste management systems and recycling plans.
So I cannot spoil my food anymore. My valley – running deep – is the chance to be faculty and chief. My valley is the early morning breath and the dying chances. My valley is the shortened season and the wilderness.
My valley is me, and I’ve begun to see.
What was the arctic before it became an oil well?
What was a forest overrun with trees?
What was my name before I was a sibling?
What was my right before I’d been stamped?
Did I come straight from a hologram?
Was I brought home on a road?
Whence and where from did the light come?
And the warmth, did it come before gas, painted and housed within four block walls of a thousand pixels per inch?
Where did I walk to before a wood chipped trail led my way?
How did the day fill before the calendar?
Can a city be a city without city lights?
How did one tarry about a late night corner before floating electric drones showed I was withing safety?
Because dammit, I’m starting to wonder
Is there any point in the quest?
What is the point in stuffing our bellies?
Where did the idea of nik-naks come hither from?
How did function get replaced by aesthetics?
When did choice become demand?
When did want become a dire need?
Why did our brothers and sisters turn from extensions of ourselves to examples of our desires?
When did we lose all of our trust?
And where has my community resettled?
Where has my tree grown its roots?
Where is my moon?
This is a protest poem
Winter wears it’s colors proudly in this city
Fighting white with tropical greens
Peering around every West-Coast corner
Drab gray peaks and arches
Occasionally peak out from behind foggy haze
Curling around
Northern mountains
Leaving otherwise black vistas
With an icing-sugar like pose
After cold arctic winds
Blow off those quiet days
Maybe not everyday
But on the days it does
You look and smile and reach out
To say hello
There I was with a paddle in my hand
In the middle of the city
Lookin’ for my river
Heat radiating off the dusty path
Cracks running East to West
And a nickle and dime store
Spinning hot air around
Dropping beads of sweat off exposed refreshments
Ghosts were speaking to me
Sitting there on the boardwalk
On old wooden stools
Grass tooth-pics jutting out
From unshaven scruff filled chins
The lot of them
And me with my paddle
I just stared at them
Ignoring the patient sun
Grumbling away as if mid-day hadn’t already come
I couldn’t tell
Dazed as I was
Had it already come?
I checked my six shooter
And slowly turned North
Towards the fresh BBQ smell
And the slow sweeper
Minding the cracks in the boardwalk
Lookin’ for my river
It was cold as I stepped off the airplane in that small foreign airport, so many miles from home and not a plan, save for you.
You were an adventure, insight into a foreign world with a warm couch to sleep on. A world I had spent so many years learning about.. planning for.
An adventure with a heart wide open and arms firmly closed, cobblestone streets ancestors had walked upon and a quiet corner of a once booming shipping port.
There was a long bus ride with anxious questions as friends long been separated chatted, and the grand tour through old town with a heavy bag and just a little bit of complaining.
Awaiting at the airport pacing back and forth, I wondered where she was. My phone was expired, no money in my pockets, not even an address to go to.
Biezpiens is a traditional dish. It was necessary, so was the fresh selection of strawberries at the old farmers market. And a little slice of chocolate, traditional chocolate.
There was a dog; a big brown Lab/Sharpei mix with big ears and bigger paws. She was an anxious dog, the kind that pulls at the leash every step of the way. Leaves, sticks, strange smells, other dogs…
Twice a day I’d walk her through the retired graveyard, searching every gravestone for recognizable names. Never found any.
Ever step I felt like I could see horses pulling buggies, old top hats and pointed mustaches. The signs of old Baltic Ritterschaft nobility.
I’d find new paths every day I’d walk the city streets. New buildings that were old buildings, new corners of the city that were old corners of the city. I’d learned cobblestones made quite a racket when car tires roll over them.
I left there in love. In love with a city, in love with a way of life. In love with a style. In love with a woman who did not want to love me.
I left there with a hug from her and a lick from the dog for a long full bus ride. The whole way to the foreign airport early that morning I stood with my bags about my shoulders, fighting the woes of leaving my heart behind and the dizziness of hardly a breakfast in my belly.
Of course the only thing I could think of was the laughing while smiling.
I’m sorry my dear darling
But I’ve been out here passing
My card into the hands
Of my future’s next romance
I hope this isn’t shocking
For I’ve been displaced in my walking
Left to my own devices
Off on unknown adventure
I was never left here laughing
Nor with you did I try crying
But a city that whispers wildly
Tore our souls together, apart
These foreign cities that circle the boundaries of my belief
Let me understand how modern we are
How even across the world we can share some stories
And come out connected like two siblings by birth
It’s beautiful how a language can break down these ancient city walls
Berlin wasn’t separated long, just a small pox
Still, people have their borders strong in their mind
They transcend all lands with mental images
They live in thunder and lightening storms
Brewed for something that is just different
Boundless with their arrogance as they strut some more
Limited in their beauty as they walk home alone
Cars that whistle as they pass on by
Cats screeching as they flip up their tail
Prayer echoing in the late hours of the night
Bells that call to you in harmony
And all for the death of a poet
A man who never cried out in vain
Sleeping and the dogs
Add weeping willows sight
The burning city streets
Hold everybody tight
“Fare ye, fare ye!”
The young kids yell
Fury and rebellion
Fight through the near hill
Drifting with madness
Screaming with joy
Holding a broomstick
Splashing up a decoy
The madness continues
The designer makes love
The married go fleeting
With the young lovers dreams