“London calling to the faraway towns…”*
[The Clash]

God man, trinket man, fake leather wallet man,
Drugs man, drumming man,  dancing on the street man
Antique man, eel man, bus man, trades man
Boots man, bagel man, feed me I am hungry man,
Fit man, gay man, straight man, trans man,
Chinese man, white man, "oi-back-to-where-you came from" man
Business man, rugger man, beautiful wife and kids man
Eco man, hipster man, shouting man, shaking man,
Scowling man, scumbag man, shuffling don’t come near me man
War man, drunk man, cruising near the bushes man
Watching man, medal man, pickpocket poor man
Box man, sleeping man,think he might be dead man,
Lost man, lonely man,
Looking from the ledge man

I saw your ghost on a train downtown -
it beckoned me to walk down memory lane once more

What a feverish recollection of unspoken dreams,
for familiarity of passing your stop created this melancholy haste -
the agony of persisting despite the lack of closure

your shadows still linger on the platform as I push forward,
ever reminding me of what could have been; nostalgia.

They say that in London
you're never more than 10 foot
from a rat
and a stone's throw
from a poet.
The space in between is taken up
by stalking survey takers.

The crooked streets
that were once paved with gold
are now peppered
with monochrome gum,
half finished poems
and generous cigarette butts.

But out in the painted parks,
within the chorus of churches
or secured in our community halls -  
that's where you can still hear us sing.

It was raining
I stood at the intersection
poetry romps in my heart like a little digimon
the world seems outsize
the city disciplined
because of the rain
transparent umbrellas
in the lens of the live cam
misty skyscrapers
extendable streets
picture of the past
withered like a leaf on the bench
the rain falls from somber sky
and visits every part
it is the countless stitches of time
moving densely together
mending the scattered
cold and lonely
little hearts.

my thoughts scattered like chaff in the wind
dandelion seeds in a spring breeze
when you first spoke to me

"deep in thought, are you?" you ask, smiling
the cafe was suddenly so loud
your eyes so bright
life so vibrant

i smile back, nervously hesitate
(is this happening!?)
then "you caught me
lost in the urban sprawl of my mind
it's nice to meet you, i'm sean"

but before we could touch
you disappeared down a side street
lit by neon signs; red, pink, blue
and i realized you were just my fantasy

a desire, too good to be true

Been a long while since I was back in the city
  (at work)
Must be around two and a half years
The Old haunts... their all haunted now
Pubs I used to visit...frequent and frequently
  get a little bit drunk/tipsy in
I wonder am I still in there drinking still
I feel like if I went in I might see
  myself sitting in some corner there...

My favourite restaurant too where I used to
  eat
Every Friday afternoon with my    
  burger  black coffee and chips
Sitting in the window looking out at the
  world going by, the people passing
Glad to have made it through another week
Glad to have survived, glad to still be alive
I almost expect to see myself sitting there
  now.....

So many have gone, so many have left...
  retired, some even passed away
So many new younger faces around the place
I wonder "Am I too, on my way out"
Wherever I go all I hear are echoes of other
  times
See faces that remind me of someone else
It's like Life is moving relentlessly along
But I've been left behind some place.

I seen a face in the street that looked
  like myself when I was young
I just stood there and watched him disappear
  into the crowd
There's such an unreal ghostly feeling about
  the place
It's so strange coming back after being at
  home alone for so long.

I held tight my belongings
afraid of everything and everyone
I had this sense of not knowing
where I'm from and where I should go

everything passed by so quickly
people running and screaming
I just sat quietly staring
at the tiffany blue coloured floor

I smelled the pollution
my nose hurting while breathing
this must be what they mean when they say
"it's hard living in the big city”

~
Lipstick to void. She is a race against time. The beveled past a disruption in her lines of influence.

Travel is dangerous, and tonight it darkens the highway of blood vessels coursing through her extremities. She wants to be luminous and under the skin.

While Dorothy dreams of tornadoes in Kansas, she dreams of remote climbs in lesser Glasgow, of party drugs in Tokyo. How many lights does she see?

In her hair are sixty circuits. But she waits, religiously inclined on the hotel bed. She drove through ghosts to get here wearing nothing but Las Vegas.

So strange at this hour, in a city full of sleepwalkers for the taking, she now dreams she's a bulldozer, she now dreams she's alone in an empty field.
~

In posh clothes she walks

in the street with a coffee --


An efficient life.