A desolate cycle of aeroplane chimes above in the sky, amidst clouds cooling on the calm of the hazy moonlight, and skateboarders settle at the edge of the pier, rolling joints, while the night is gored by the glimmer of red neon dive bars. And I watch a car flirting with the traffic lights, blinking in and out on the metallic pole, winking one by one in romantic rhythms.
The city is all but a silhouette, and the sea erases it hips, and brings out the neck with a killing anticipation of advocating life against the art. The air slips in the gaps between the wet wooden floors, cracked with time that went begetting change, and besetting visions, it hides someplace for me to breathe in while I’m still in lonesome stasis, and while I am still in the cover of glowing lampshade, reading a novel that series the name of despondency, fetishizing the senses with honey-colored memories that echo in a sequence of sadness unique to pensively wrought minds.
I see that the room wants to keep me, and the breeze wants to breathe me. I can almost feel the free hold, as my soul rambles thru the fashionable show rooms, and storefronts, coasting down in inescapable kiosks selling fruits, and juices, guns and roses. Or as I sit away at a desk writing what I read, the dim dark falling over my head. All the while, whistling, thinking about what I saw from the balcony, and then swiveling in the chair, still thinking. Thinking.
The first line… you hook me every time!
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Thank you! 🙂
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car flirting with the traffic lights…
Damn!
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It just came to me. I guess I was lucky that way. 😉
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Yeah, yeah, yeah…You’re a lucky man.
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I’m glad we agree. 😋
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Great write! 👍🏻
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Thank you!!
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Great tour! Is this a real city? Wonderful imagery, Watt right down to the guns and roses. 😊
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Don’t judge me, but I kind of mixed New York and Rome to come up with this sort of place. Like the storefronts were derived from Cola Di Rienzo, and the Pier from some part of an American movie.
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I love it! I envisioned cities we’ve visited—with all the vendors. And the hotel room—could totally feel it—brought back lots of happy memories traveling…
Are you from Rome?
Looking forward to the next visual tour…
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I wish I was from Rome. That would be totally awesome.
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I see you’ve mentioned Rome before—holds a special place for you, eh?
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Really does. 😀
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That’s super cool. Hmmm…makes me wonder what city holds a special place for myself…
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Please tell me too!!
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Kiev?
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I don’t know. I haven’t been—yet. Maybe. Yes, an old city—with a fortress on a hill…near a forest. Definitely a forest. And a lake, river that flows to the sea…Black Sea.
Now you got me thinking of some of the places we traveled and visited over the years. They’re all my favorite! I especially loved Nepal—“never ending peace and love”. But I also loved India. ‘I’ll never do it again” haha! Some wonderful memories and beautiful people.
Tell me, what is it about Rome for you?
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Everything was so eternal. So much. And nobody made me feel like I was different, simply because I spoke a little of their language. Every where you turn, there’s something blocking your troubles- posters, archaic walls, shops, crowds beckoning enjoyment, Roman architecture. I felt to myself: there is a place for you. And it’s so awesome…
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Wow. I’ve never thought about Rome in this way. Yes, speaking even just a bit of the language makes such a difference. We found the same to be true on our travels. For sure—Roman architecture. “…a place for you.” That right there says it all!
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Plus, the city is modern too. And archaic at the same time. If it didn’t belong in my hood.memory section, I’d be jealous of saturated neurons.
P.S Wow, how was Nepal?
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Jealousy sure is interesting, no? I’ve been thinking about this lately—which is a more powerful emotion? Jealousy or hate?
Nepal…we were there almost 20 years ago. Seems like just yesterday the memories are still so vivid. So many happy memories—even the ones where I was sick, so sick—lying in a bed in a Buddhist hotel in Patan (just south of Kathmandu) everything in the room was white…and peaceful. I slept for three days in that room. Yep, many happy memories.
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Sounds great. 😀
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😊
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“I watch a car flirting with the traffic lights” is excellent.
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As is the rest of the piece? 😋
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The phrase stood out among your usual recherché assemblage of verbiage.
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Thank you. And sorry if I forced it out of you. 😂
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Geez, dude. A. Jim Morrison B. Holy shit, I’m young again. Bravo sir, bravo.
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You’re still young at heart and your body seems to be jumping circles around youth. So I guess I made you feel like yourself? 😎
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Lol, well I certainly appreciate that compliment. Thanks for the smile.
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You’re welcome and thank you too.
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A beautiful, symmetric construction: tightly wound at the first with the noise of airplanes and the stabbing red of neon lights not to speak of the skateboarders dashing down to their rendevous at the pier……
and then unravelling, like a ball of twine, but smoothly, until we get to the masterfully placed – right in the center of the piece: “The air slips in……..it hides someplace for me BREATHE in…” Breathe as in a little urban oasis where one can pause and take note in the midst of this urban noise and flash.
Until we see – no more stabbing red or loud sounds, no more urban flash, but an acceptance on the part of the narrator that his/her breath CAN BE at ease with the ambiance of the rooms in which s/he has arrived IF s/he wishes to be at ease.
But s/he does not quite wish this. S/he “almost feels the free hold”.
Taking note myself, I have to say that I do not want the narrator to be too much at ease (selfishly)
because interesting writing comes – it seems often out of that gap between noise and quiet and between the self breathing and the self acknowledging that the world breathes. In there.
A lovely piece, Watt. Just so. Not a word unnecessary or superfluous. Sarah
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Thank you, Sarah. I wanted to portray a person who is fastened to the loneliness of life, but realizing that it was only one aspect, and that he could always escape his position with the strangers outside- who aren’t so nice but “People are Strange, *only* when you’re a stranger.
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Loneliness is a killer. Because she died, there are many Toni Morrison quotes going around. One of them is that at a certain point, the beauty of the world becomes enough. You don’t have to photograph or paint it or write about it. It is enough.
Must have been a quote late in her life. But I appreciate the quote because it shifts the emotions from the I who feels lonely to the world in whose endless wonders the I incorporates itself in a process of being profoundly found….Sarah
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Just there between the I breathing and the I acknowledging that the room wants to keep you and the breeze wants to breathe you, just there there is no loneliness, Poet. But the narrator’s soul, in this piece, started rambling again…..Sarah
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An arsenal of your own phrases I have now, Poet, piling up in my house, to give you back. Sarah
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I hope it gets fatter until it’s a more fulfilling sandwiches to which you can read the you shaped story in the holes of the world.
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There is an electricity within this that picks my mind up and does not let it go. Even after I reached the end, I am still buzzing from it. The image that you created is so detailed and vivid, I can picture it clearly and want to place myself within it. This is excellent and I think your writing just keeps getting better and better.
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I’m glad that the details didn’t subtract anything from the image I wanted to set in stone. It’s like when you shrink back and wonder “Who gives a shit about anything?” And you wonder that genuinely and not in apathy. A pretty lonely feeling.
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Yes that is a lonely feeling . I can honestly say that the details did not detract – I feel like you more and more are writing poems that are both cohesive and coherent but still have plenty of artistic flair and vivid wandering. It’s a mix that I love.
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Thank you!! I feel like poetry is either too heady or high, or chesty and often bland, low. A mix is just what is needed for them to sing off the screen.
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Yes, you are so right…. And so well put. Poetry needs a charge, but not one that has such high voltage that makes it incomprehensible. Your ‘wattage’ here is just perfect (sorry but I HAD to say it like that!).
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😂
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Great👍
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A city scape captured
within the sentient walls
of a phosphorescent lament.
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I guess the climactic mood was of lamentation. Thanks for such an insightful comment.
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Lamentation is a deep place
of mindful revelation.
Just not part of the Walt Disney
global conglomeration program.
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Makes sense, makes beauty too.
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A wonderful piece of writing!
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😁
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That opening paragraph is some splendid writing indeed 👍🖤
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Thank you! It means a lot.
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You’re welcome 👍🖤
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Reblogged this on worldtraveller70.
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You’ re nominated for the “Special Blogger” Award, dear. Here’s the link of the nomination : https://outosego.com/2019/08/10/nominated-for-the-special-blogger-award/
Ps : If you choose to take part on this, i wish you all the best, dear. Take care and enjoy, Watt.
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Thanks! 🙂
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You’ re welcome, Watt.
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Brilliant vivid imagery! Love the evocative snapshots here 🙂
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Thank you, Tom! It means a lot. 🙂
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I want us to someday find a time machine so we can travel back in the days we’re the beats we’re and show them our futurism of poetic brilliance.
You my friend…have pushed this prose so vividly good and genius! 🙂
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Thank you so much! 🙂
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You are welcome, Watt. 🙂
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I have missed being immersed in your words, images and soul.
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I have missed having you here too!! Where had you been?
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Sometimes words refuse to fall so I take time away to rediscover my voice.
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Relatable.
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Greetings from Italy
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Grazie! Buongiorno!!
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Great post
🙏❣
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Dear Watt, not only should you always write you should speak. Speak all of these we read and all of the other beautiful things I’ve no doubt your mind holds. You are another level of everything.
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I seriously doubt that, remember February what kind of perception I must have radiated. I’m still the same person- cold and unsure.
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You thought you radiated being cold and unsure? And February was when we spoke off WordPress I’m thinking
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Yup
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I don’t remember it that way, only that you didn’t really seem very interested in me lol 🤷♀️
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Really? I think it was in praise of your work. But I’m sorry if it came off that way. 😂
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Lol, I think it was yes, my work. I believe it was the entire thing put together. It seemed as though you briefly told me you liked what I did and now we were done talking. Haha
Which of course, was fine. No one has to talk to me or even want to for that matter. It was nice you shared what you did ❤️ And then you moved on lol.
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Lol. 😂
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Oh wow. Love. Also that image reminds me of Jim Morrison. I was a huge obsessed fan of his in my teens and twenties. He wrote his through’s as thru’s, like you, Watt. That poetry book, what was it called. The New Creatures. I visited his grave when I was 19. His head was missing. But there were many of us there, happily in the depths of despair, jubilant in hive mourning. Strangers united.
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Jim Morrison is my guide thru a spiritual universe. 😂
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Well, I suppose he’s now in the right zone for that task. 😉:))
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