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stuart harris Jul 2015
knitted on a dodgy bobble hat
or a favourite chunky jumper
from scandanavia, or yorkshire

untasteful but definitely practical..
smelly and friendly like a wet dog
pliable like warm playdoh...

patulioi oil
will always remind me of you...
'a hippy place in my heart...'
like a beachnut,
no, a beach hut
shelves littered with the flotsam of our throwaway society,
flip flop corner...

19:10
some random hermit crab making his escape from
the dripping bundle of just found fishing net
down through the crack in the floor...
into the sand
and back to the sea.
the moths and midges gravitate towards the fossils and rock shelf
because that's where the gaslamp gently hisses.

suncracked and faded
pieces of
70's buckets and spades flicker in the corner
between the scraps of rope
and the deflated inflatables
and the bottlecap damian hurst
next to sea purse corner,
biological tendrils contrasting the ever stoic rubber ducks
who escaped from the pacific gyre...

panning around, the smartphone registers,
the garish tatty windbreak
and the 90's ghettoblaster
which still has some juice left from those batteries
we bought at the gift shop...
last year...
for our imaginary beach hut....
in the outer hebrides...?

you take the camping gaz from the cupboard
and put the kettle on...
the beach is desert island white
the sea azure like a gaudy 70's postcard
the wind tugging relentless through our hair.
but the pub is warm and friendly
where grizzled fishermen philosophise
hardily. by the fire.
between warming shots of smokey single malt.
imaginary beachhut

does saying it mean it will never happen?
HEK Dec 2012
the last time i flew
it was daylight
i didn’t look out the window.

now
i look outside and see
a thousand lights;
and each light is
a thousand souls
burning against
the
gaslamp yellow nightscape.

clouds provide a familiar metaphor
yet those nightshade souls still glimmer through
where the cotton grey
is weakest
shining
as i like to imagine they will always shine
even though i know
that always is a relative term.

once in Tokyo i had the perfect drink
like electric moonbeams
and violets
and secrets soaked in gin.

i taste it here
in the recycled air above the nightscape
while viewing the souls
that may or may not be
the remnants of fevered dreams.

listen with me
if we’re very quiet, we can hear
the faint strains of
tokyo jazz
filtering through the soft thrum
of wheels and
motorized air
and a crying baby that’s never tasted
the smoky sweet burn of gin and juniper.
He never came out in the daytime, though
He’d always come out at night,
I’d hear his feet, pass in the street
By the gaslamp’s feeble light,
He’d peer through the frosted window glass
And I swear that he always hissed,
Whenever I opened the trap, he’d gone
A-swirl in the yellow mist.

We huddled under the chimney piece,
We huddled under the stair,
Whenever his steps were echoing
From here to the you-know-where,
I tried to protect my Carolyn
Who would shut her eyes and ears,
He had the power, for over an hour
To bring Carolyn to tears.

He’d come when the frost brought icicles
He’d come when the wind would blow,
He’d come when I left her tricycle
Outside, and covered in snow,
And then when the ice on the window ledge
Began to go crack-crack-crack,
She often hid, right under the lid
Where the firewood lay in a stack.

And then when the door blew open, from
A gust in the wind out there,
We’d lie, with fears unspoken
As the creaking rose up the stair,
Then Carolyn shrieked, while I couldn’t speak
For hearing her cries and moans,
As terror spread, from under the bed
And chattered through teeth and bones.

I swore that he wore a ******* hat
With a brim that covered his eyes,
Carolyn wrote that he wore a cloak
As part of his dread disguise,
But nobody would believe us, ‘til
We heard he was coming back,
His hobnailed boots on the cobblestones
Approached, a-click and a-clack.

They’d slow, and stop by the outer door
Our hearts in our mouths, alas,
And then his shadow would fall right there
He’d peer through the frosted glass,
The knocker had an echoing sound
As he knocked, went rat-tat-tat,
And mother leapt to the door in a bound,
‘Dear God! It’s Uncle Jack!’

David Lewis Paget
Bruce Levine Aug 2018
I had a daydream
That I was transported back
To Old New York.
But the time was confused,
The eras overlapping.
Was I a New York Knickerbocker
Or a Gilded Age socialite?
Were my friends the Theodore Roosevelts
Or Mrs. Astor, the Vanderbilts,
Carnegies, Howells or Upton Sinclair?
With Gilded Age manners
And pride in couture.
Was I living on Washington Square
Or in a Fifth Avenue mansion?
The confusion was scary
And my timeline divided.
And yet there was something
That comforted me, held me
Like a blanket.
Society changes
But dreams are everlasting.
And Old New York remains a mem’ry;
Painting a picture,
Holding a candle, a gaslamp, a light
To brighten the moments
With happier eras,
And flights of imagination
Of times out of sight.
As Old New York remembers
The passage of time
That rekindles our passion
For elegance and splendor;
That brings on the daydreams
That remain Old New York.
EuphoricFlowers Jun 2021
You left a piece of yourself in my front door step.
Where a loquat tree grows, where my tears fell.
And you see,
Rain came just in time to wash a bit of us away.
It washed away all of you, that was left inside of me.

You left a piece of yourself in Harbor Drive
A restaurant that doesn’t exist anymore
And I thank God,
That worked out just fine.

There’s a lot of you in the streets of Downtown
Where Gaslamp’s trolley lead to your house
Where we ran all the way to Seaport Village,
To the house across Grape Street
From where you first said, you Loved me

And there’s a piece of you in every corner
Of my neighborhood, your neighborhood
I can’t go back to Chula Vista without wincing every time I pass your exit
In fact I can still see your bedroom every time I close my eyes.

No I can never do that.
You are all over
From where the beach stretched,
To the mountains of Cowles
To where the borderline finished,
To where we never got a chance to explore together.

You left a piece of yourself in me.
Where a flower still lies within.

You left a piece of yourself In my front doorstep.
Where my tears fell on a loquat tree
And the rain came just in time to wash us away
Only to grow what I couldn’t with you.

March 4, 2019.

— The End —