Shadows move with my feet on the cobblestone
from the sunlight dancing on the picado banners
that stretch between buildings
And offer some reprieve
From the Texas sun.

The mouth-watering scent of pan dulce
Draws children to the glass fronts of the old bakery,
And they flit between sweet breads
And figurines of brilliant colors
Crowding stands run by elderly craftsmen and women with big smiles-

San Antonio,
There’s something in your streets.
Something binds me to your old, leaning buildings,
And the murals that decorate them,
San Antonio,

My first memories of reading
Reside on 600 Soledad Street
between the shelves of the Big Enchilada,
And dapple down through the glossy, colorful limbs
of its Chihuly spine.

You exist in the border between coastal plains and the hill country,
Mesquite trees and palm trees living side by side
Just as the German and Spanish settlements do,
The missions becoming as much a part of the land
As the Guadelupe.

With tequila on my tongue,
And boots on my feet,
I’m prepared to bask in the warmth absorbed by sandy loam
And breathe in the smell of elotas on a Sunday afternoon
To the sound of San Fernando’s bells,

Oh, San Antonio…
I’ve never wished for a better dwelling,
Even one with cooler summers
And smoother streets,
Oh, San Antonio…

I’d be a fool to leave you,
To call another home,
And I’ve never found myself foolish before,
So my dearest, sweetest, most proud San Antonio,
I am here to stay.

a misty start
   with worlds to go
a walk through forest,
   desert, snow
with altitude
   and dizzy joy
a challenge which
   my strength employs
a peaceful summit
   waiting warm
where thought and poetry
   find form
from near the sun
   our minds turn
to worlds below
   we will return


-TylerN @ 10,040 feet, 2018.05.12

thank you
for teaching me how to love;
now that you broke my heart
i can go
and give it to someone who knows how to love me
in ways you never could

Let's talk about this jazz club
that lives in my cellphone
in 1950 something with Chet Baker
back from the dead.
Let's toast to random notes taking flight
into the city in the middle of nothing nights we've known or been familiar with.
Let's shake hands cordially with the unfamiliar as in "deal", or "peace be with you" as if in church, tipping hats at that stranger passing by at the crosswalk some late evening in spring alongside dandelions sprouting forth from the pavement. Let's read between breaks of beats Kerouac must have hit in 1950 something San Francisco in yelps into the moonlit stages of the balcony of his boxcar boxcar boxcar gone by in a mad blur with whatever graffiti'd message of hope it bore on its sides. Let's hitch into the unknowingly infinite by way of the pen's mighty point. Let's unlearn the way syllable by syllable and demolish languaged signs like hurricane force candor blowing down fact-ory made terms and political decorum as smoke from the pages of their corporate handbook joins the Chet Baker solo note pilgrmage into the holy skyline. Let's move side by side unspoken as those jazz notes he forgot to play. Let's fill in those blanks with uninformed confidence beyond our abilities and grasp the unsayable names of our dreams remmebered. Let's see in seconds passing like bums inebriated with the holy moments gone too soon. Let's talk about nothing but this sacred second at hand on this clock unseen pointing overhead to the face of the moon gone full and hungry for attention. Let this happen only now. Only then will we talk about where it's going.