A warm rain is falling and a breeze is blowing. The gray skies and misty trees masquerade as chill in this air-conditioned room. It shudders my soul and an ancient place of longing haunts me from the dusty regions of memory. Such stirring from antiquity contrasts with the brevity of my time in this creaking town of ghosts. Nether ghouls slink among us wearing guises of civility.
Soon the mask will drop and the ball of celebration will dissemble into ugly reality. Jets will strafe the virgin sky last ripped by cannon fire. The caverns of this cityscape absorb the wounded and their relatives and friends. The dead are vermin and vulture feed. Even civil pets slink to and fro from their ravenous feasts. Till then great unseen forces remain chained till their cue. I agonize about gentle matters of the heart and the soft lips of vulnerability. Life was once so sure but now crumbles with gamble in every step.
I see the glint in your eye and and hear tremble in your voice. A cold city steel braces your resolve. I was so privileged to see the hurting girl hovering on the brink of eternity. I didn't know how fleeting the glimpse would be.
I left so many times without saying goodbye. Hope always took me from here to the next time of possibility. We dreamers are such threats to fear mongers and warlords. Haunting speculation would take me one more time into the confusion of Mystery Babylon. I sense a death awaits me bigger than my physical existence here. Minions of indignity even now plot my humiliation. Echoes of mocking laughter resound from the pages of history. There is life beyond this coming death I long to know.
Scarred beyond pride's embrace I shuffle down a rocky road. Unseen legions accompany me on this lonely trek. Ancestors and absent loved ones entertain me with anecdotes. Even my grandchildren hear my sagacity via wormholes in the fabric of the universe. The quiet solitude is full of voices transcending space and time, the communion of Einstein.
I leave so many others when I leave you. My children will struggle to make sense of my leaving, an understanding eluding my whole journey. Fare thee well my loves.
Skulking from the sidelines regret slinks along dragging remorse in the triumph of shame. I keep my distance, avoiding the magnetic pull of hopelessness. The field of shattered dreams elicit tears longing for the transitory joy before the apocalypse. The depth of joy suspends the passage of time, but only briefly, until I awake with a start from the nightmare of history's pain. Yet meditation's relief settles my heaving soul ever so completely, ever so briefly.
The crooked streets of Greenwich Village wend through my soul entertaining me with the warm embrace of your ear. The quiet part of you revealed the wealth of wisdom residing in your discretion. Nine million souls clamoured but your whispers captured my attention. No one inquired like me. No one answered like you. Bittersweet was the dissembling of joy in the attrition of neglect. My hope washed up on shore, a glorious wreck.
My sililoquy's lonely echo shudders in an isolated moan. Dragged along in the train of aborted possibility. Your creaking gate rusts and my dry well gathers dust. The future slain by reason and other's counsel for your best. What did they know? Bastards of jealousy!
The cold streets of isolation are full with throng. Your steely-eyed certainty guards your precious core of vulnerability. The shiny glow of your soul beams in your face. My lover saw the beauty in you. She faded into interstellar chill but your furtive eyes war in me still.
I remember your Brooklyn smirk when I asked you if you were a jogger. Your sophisticated presentation cracked ever so slightly to reveal ordinary when your friend chided your fast food history. What a snotty bugger she was casting her snobby gaze from Jersey shores!
Mining the joy from the past history pleasures me. Your absent savour strokes my soul. I feel your breath on my ear. Languid longing steals to thrill when I recall you still.
An old contract from you washed up on the shores of neglect. In the dusty pain of silence it passed unnoticed by me. I left you hanging while I struggled against the inevitability of my own noose. By the time I resurrected to possibility the tender door had morphed into a steely vault. Though it is too late I say I'm sorry for letting you down and for treating your confidence with neglect. I wish I followed through. But then again I wish many things. If only it made a difference with you.
You floored me with your first glance my way, a velvet jewel I had to know. 2,000 miles I flew to you. 2,000 miles you flew to me. 2,000 miles, 500 miles, I drove to you. Nothing would keep me from you. Except your choice.
Then a flash of light...brighter than the sun...
