A leer leapt across his face,
it was not a surf smirk
that rolls up from coral cheeks,
but a snide smile that
surprised everyone there.

Coffee shop stopped and halted,
for this man fell to his knees
and asked to wed,
a girlfriend of small brunette proportions,
whom sat next to him
basking in good fortune.

Golden orbit
of metal bound
and knit,
graced her finger, slipped
down the knuckle,
fused to the skin
as every buckle ever worn.

For these two would make it,
sworn to mourn when the other fell.

“I wish that I could see the light,
before you put the blinds down
on the edge of night”

She packed an overnight bag
for her next day flight
back home to somewhere
where climate exists,
another girl from the Tennessee state, kissed.

Appalachian Mountain eyes
with summit mist
smokers eyes,
deep brown pupils
drowning among the whites of her eyes:

*it’s the eyes that I remember, as well as our last encounter in street-alley December.

on the way back
met every man and his dog,
but leaden skies persisted
and the hills, up above,
got lost in the fog.

with a halo of snow,
just tipping the brim,
gray-clouds-tumble
and fall at the knee,
the limping limb, of
the deer stood in front
of me.

eyes of forests-yet-to-be-
discovered stayed in focus
not getting lost, nor twitching
for the frost nor
the freezing droplets that
cease to progress down
fur and neck.

This is a club scene poem, so
imagine classics from the nineties
and fearless girls drinking from beer tins-
this is that night you want to omit
and not remember,
this is every night you’ve had to dance
and not wanted to.*

He dropped his drink
for the red-bra-girl;
she thought it the rain,
but instead it were a wasted
drink down the cigarette drain.

Girls in Jack Daniels
who don’t like whiskey
nor dances,
nor the sting of alcohol
upon their tongue.

Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.

The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.

Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.

Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-hom­e-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.

He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.

Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.

We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.

Egg cell boy was
nurtured in a
test tube home.

What he was rested
on shelf after shelf,
a museum to himself.

Hawk eye dreams
stayed stale in a thick rimmed
case of glass and class,

though he never
saw what was in
front of him:

a blind love that
would not materialise
into anything but,
time wasted under sheet and cover,
and some lies to warm that
comic book heart of yours.