A Tale Of Six Cities

DUBLIN(STALKING STATUES) Dublin... my past stalks me hiding behind statues when I stop to think & think I hear a footprint disturb the memory of what it all meant (& means no longer) the dawning awakening the bridges...the parks dressing them in sunshine as if sunshine were some new fangled thing. I still following the forgotten streets that lead me (always lead me) to your kiss. LONDON - THE PAST'S FUTURE I walk these streets Blake would have walked as the rain listened to his every thought before it formed into the terrors of tigers or angels that prowled the confines of his mind rattling the bars of his human cage end up at dawn as the sun far now from Egypt touches Cleopatra's Needle as if remembering other times other mind's that held it my mind uncertain if my footsteps hurry into the future or the past. NEW YORK - HOW FAR A SNOWFLAKE WILL FALL Among the canyons of New York a snowflake falls in all its glory as if a skyscraper were a mere measure of how far a snowflake will fall before it sits upon the tongue of an unsuspecting tourist caught in the flurry of snowflake after snowflake obscuring his vision of metal & steel with their utter simplicity. AMSTERDAM - 'AND THEN...' Seeing as it is in Dutch (I don't understand a single word) but the slap is real (and hurts) visible as a brand that marks her skin with his hand persperation & spit as her head jerks back. We recoil in shock. We gasp as he tears her top off buttons pinging in the bright lights leaving her breathless & topless. She is still a still point in the storm of his fury. We applaud & clap. This is too too real! Never have we seen Shakespeare like it unnervingly physical as if our nerves are attached to theirs we flinch with every violence physical or emotional here now in the night's air the actors appear in their own right leaving the theater laughing & loving in their own life Othello & Iago seem the best of friends Desdemona is so alive & lively I kiss you & whispear: 'Put out the light & then...put out the light! ' Under a canal bridge one light winks to another. VENICE - EASY AS WATER Venice... whispered all about us. 'Water! ' it lapped 'Water! ' 'I am of Water! ' 'I am Water! ' it proclaimed in a voice of centuries. A mist echoed the water. A gondala knocked against it's mooring as if eager to break free. A city made of mist as real a city as that made of bricks & water unseen birds turned into sound the ghost city taking flight bells frightening the air as Venice (dreaming all night about itself) awoke & put on its clothes of building & legend became itself once again easy as water easy as water ... and easy as water we kissed. PARIS - SE METTRE A TABLE We made love between screaming sirens of fire brigade & ambulance (as if we were either on fire or dying) & now a police car screeching to a halt just outside our window as if they were going to arrest us for our indecent behaviou. 'We know you're in her so...come out with your hands up (keep 'em up) where we can see 'em! ' Our dreams being taken in in handcuffs our lust being frisked for hidden weapons but they just went about being police doing police things (only in French of course) & left us to our selves. We got back to seeing what a little tenderness ...could do. Somewhere an owl hooted ('L'hibou? Non! ') close yet very far away but we did not hear as we were asleep. (My girlfriend was reading A TALE OF TWO CITIES by our honorable Mr. Dickens so I thought it would a far far better thing to do...to write 6 poems about the 6 cities I had experienced.)