A Walk Down Mainstreet

Walking Away From Mainstreet

Beckoning you to come in,

It painstakingly carves out an emptiness it claims was always there:

Tomorrow's freedom 

Transformed

Into the uncertainties of a daily life passing away into ghosts.

Ghosts that carve their space

To pull you inside

To deny you an untouched happiness they promise you on shiny surfaces

Behind the windows' ephemeral glass

Shimmering mirage: inside a love that will only pass.

Desecrate its temple: 

Do not walk inside.

Turn away and look into my eyes.

My love bought only when you relinquish all that buys:

Embrace the fullness by pulling away your guise.

Life tread on water with futures unplanned:

Tell me, have your feet touched upon these lands?

Meeting A Stranger For The First Time

Another song for you... still no recording though.  In the meantime I'll give you another song:

Meeting  A Stranger For The First Time

Walk down these streets while their feet and their faces

pass me by

They move as if they’re in a trance or as if I’m not

Really here

And I look into their eyes

And they look away

Cars driving up to the stoplights

Honk in their rush to get away

The streetlamps block out the moonlight

And I’m left here waiting for a sign….

And you appear under streetlamp’s glare

And In your eyes

I see you there

Noise from the city surrounds us with movement

But for me everything is still

An unspoken feeling, surrounding, expanding

To you, and me, the city…

And I’ve always lived for these moments

Where everything falls into place

Nothing between us but silence

No words could pierce our gaze

[bridge]

And you walk towards me

And my eyes can feel the touch of your smile

A dream all around us

As you walk by

[bridge]

I feel your smile though you dissolve into the crowd

City’s rhythm pulls you away into the emptiness of the streets

And I turn around

As you walk away

And the birds calling out from the rooftops

Tell me what I felt wasn't there

And I’m left here standing in silence

As the city pulls me away...

And you turn around….

Socrates

-->

Socrates

Some people

Cannot let the silence dance

In the gaps between the conversation

That harbor a deeper intimacy

Than words could let us know.

Afraid to shed the dream-words

That never seem to bridge the void

Between the different speakers

Speaking their different lives,

They think they cannot reconcile

Gazes that do not meet in conversation

So they fill the space with words

To create a common ground

But the ground falls under foot

Of those who ponder words in the silence

That follows their pronouncement

And lingers in interpretations.

If only they would cease their thoughts

That strive to avail them of discomfort

Found in the uneasiness

Of not knowing what the other feels.

Only then would they smile in silence:

For the love that awaits them there

As two people feel the understanding

That the most important things must remain unsaid.

Forever Means Right now

This kind of music is uncharacteristic of what I usually post.  I would urge you to listen to the lyrics

Forever Means Right Now

You want to know me

I want to know you

Space and time seem to flow on

But our eyes stand still against the tide.

You can feel our eyes locked together.

Through these eyes stare into me.

Can you see what I am trying to say?

Will we share this moment forever?

But sometimes these eyes slip away

Past mortal, living time

to the immensity of the eternal:

The instant of a feeling

that takes centuries to explain.

The instant of a moment

That takes a lifetime to understand

This proximity to reality produces

Euphoria so powerful it must be a dream,

But then I look into your eyes again.

Does this light still linger

In the longing glance you find here?

Interstitial Selves/Headcrack

The content of this poem is probably not appropriate for this blog but I'm going to post it anyway.  To some extent, however, i think it is a fitting counterpoint to my poem We Know Each Other.  Parts of Interstitial Selves also remind me of the aspects of the city that I describe in Displacement, though the narrator in former poem has certainly been infected by the movement of the city much more than the narrator in the latter poem.

Interstitial Selves

Inside the café

I look out on to the small portion of the city grid that unfolds before my eyes:

Beyond the softness of my translucent reflection on the window pane

Towards the sea of black coats, umbrellas and moving shapes that grace the landscape.

Another person,

Another life:

Another unread novel rotting on the shelf

Passed over by all who would read it;

Passed by on the city street.

Can you feel the rain between us

As you move on

Pretending not to see the face that stares past my prints

Shining off the window after these longing fingers pull away?

I have seen it in your face when you look down or straight ahead

And pass by the others in your bubble as if living in your own dream:

Merely a distant gaze,

You face the throng,

Face desire

Face the unconscious need that drives the surrounding movement forward

Towards the discovery of its own emptiness that renews its search and its longing.

You do not share this longing:

Dwelling in this space between the others

Content to be carried along by the forces beyond your control

How I wish your calmness would infect the world around you

So as to part this ocean of desirous chaos

That I might walk to you

Look you in the eyes

And smile…

I Send My Regards To The Philosopher

I Send My Regards To The Philosopher                                              

Lost in the somnolence of his solitude

The poet’s hell

Lies in the heaven of his existence

That he cannot see

With eyes closed

And back turned towards the future:

His game composed through endless hindsight,

But no sight for what is here…

But I am here…

And I looked into his eyes…

Lost

In his dualities and questions,

Frustrated with only heaven’s silence for an answer,

He vowed to fill the world with words,

But still stopped to listen to mine:

“Do not feel the guilt of change

As words seem to lose their meaning

As they fly away from you

And drift into the sky.

In this moment together

Do not fight time as it moves forward

And wait forever for abstract completion,

That escapes us even now

As we dance

Into the present’s dawn.”

Now that was old school.

We Know Each Other

The stranger walked

As the Moment shone from eyes

Betraying a soul

That shadowed the glory of its Revelation.

Fate locked two gazes

That knew of the other’s inner flame:

A knowledge no words could hope to capture

Though both followed separate paths…

Do we know each other

As we walk these city streets

Whose blindness we find so lacking

In the fleeting glance

that passed us by?

Dust

   

The wanderer follows

No hallowed path

Set forth for her

By the sagacious few.

Nor does she live

To build her past

For far off futures

Whose seeds are sewn.

No familiar face

Has she ever seen

That greets her where

She decides to sleep

But travels with

The wind in her hair:

The only companion

She chooses to keep.

All empires return

To dust that birthed

Them from the nothingness

Of barren ground,

And push the ambitious

To build them tall

For fleeting futures

On foundations unsound.

Such men still laugh

At one like her

Who possesses nothing

In their eyes,
And lives in chaos

Of shifting destiny

With no respect

For human lies.

But no future goal

Controls her fate

Nor worldly tethers

Bind her past

So she is free

To contemplate

Her relation to

The earth so vast.

She is the dust

from God’s fingers

that’s fallen on

Ungrateful land

And shows the blind

And sinful people

Their origin from

The present at hand.

They deride and mock

Or at best ignore her

And value what God

Did not confer

But she is more

than the earth and sky

And none can take

What belongs to her.