Thursday, January 29, 2009

Let Us Bare A Shared Arrow

she doesn't know I'm going to break her heart
but that's part of learning I guess
to confess I knew this truth from the start
would be most to nothing short of less
young love is not innocent, it's retention is hard
and it's maintenance is much the best

you can ask of two such hearts pierced by the same arrow
eventually one must tear for bearing the test


Lift Travel's Weight My Eighty Six Proof

Osaka: I stand swift in this hallway's soft noise
rasping my drags quick just stalling time for bed
nicotine and drinking, appalling sense of habits
and but suck back another day's foresight dread

on my feet: only pair, they're lead shoes I cannot wear
and are filled with feelings which to bare is unjust
complain less I should, company I share is far the best
but hard luck: so unfair is my love that I trust


...
a week into this trip I look back now, already
on my learned time in Japan- a gaijin stranger
and find myself struggling to keep steady
from exponentially, rapidly tiring and aging

but filled with awe I am and amazement
forever aware, knowing every step I take is trod
and the snow where I am now lends a haze
that is slowing my travel's emotional plod

though, here I paid cost; I lost my gloves at the station
my black leather ones: soft and especially warm
and for my grief I've only me to blame
but of the cold grips my fingers I was not warned

anyway, the rod that I've been propping myself with
is bending, not needed for these roads
are shaping themselves and giving lift
for the white that reflects me less alone

tonight dear, I'll warm up for my glass of Suntory Whisky
and thoughts embedded, due it's eighty-six-proof, how I miss you


Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Snow's White's Stained & Staircases I'm Gonna Climb

So, I step outside and the snow's white is stained by the flat soles of my leather shoes. Trampled and broken underneath my weight, I take a moment to associate the fact again, that I am in Japan.

Trying to stop from slipping, I light a smoke and place my mini laptop on the ground to listen to the sounds of Bob Dylan strumming and rocking 'Like A Rolling Stone' and strangers continue to blow in to this place with new faces that all say the same thing: they want to get warm and didn't seem warned enough of the cold that flows through the streets of Sapporo in the winter.

Then, my eyes find the tire marks on the road that are brown like a coffee stain that leads well and truly away from everything I see and more ever this all seems unknown.

Wandering gaze, I keep consistent distraction with Japan's staircases. All these apartment buildings that rise up into the sky and are so clean that they gleam like stars in a sky that's white. I'm unsure my such fixation on the patterns the stairs create but it makes me feel a kind of amazed to just spend hours gazing at them. The patterns of straight lines and the diagonals and shapes are so rigid and fixed that maybe it's just a notion of wishing to climb. For it occurs me that we're all just trying to climb, ascend a little higher than our ever aware position.

So today I think I've made my plans just to climb rather than stand. And even though I must come down I'll take time to look around from the view of these archaic stars. And feel a little higher and continue gazing, feeling more and more alight and alright.


Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Another Day, Another Train Ride

wake up, change

short roads
caught unaware the cold
deceptive skies outside
morning's window

cigarette, coffee
not allowed inside till five
step outside and whistle
air crisp such does to feel alive

station shopping
a basement of two levels
eleven other floors, people revel
endless consumerist pleasure

myself wandering
days spent getting lost
hours searching where to eat
scouring shops for less cost

train ride
rows of three, sit side by side
I take the seat at the aisle
rest my coat, smoke alight

departing Kyoto
Shinkansen train speed swift
stranger, I lean to tell her
of my journey this far and my disbelief

language barrier
makes me say what's unknown
to all but my inner conscience
until tears become my tone

so alone
and traveling further away
from home to try and grow
new wings for aging days

lacking preparation
I hope only to gain answers
and so much rains upon my resting
washing a haze of every plan

wishing persistently
for getting back to you
because already I have to tell
of why I don't want to do

this anymore
ignoring our feelings- dormant
in our hearts to say
makes slaves of our undercurrent prayers

prisoner lovers
we won't abdicate disinterest's jail
still wail in the cold of the night
and so for actions intentions fail

disappear eventually
as this train as thought into the distance
separating my dreams from real instance
in Hiroshima I awake


Elevator

well, we took the hostel elevator together
at the end of late last night
you to your room at level four
and me to mine at level five
and I saw a look, brief but there
in your eyes when you whispered goodbye
that said, despite your kind words,
between us this was final

and mine to own were feelings
that should thin out with rationale
but as a moment alone of time
and given contexts; consumed me with passion
and as sure as I am of the fact
of not forever, I know one thing exact
the way you lifted my spirit high
and smiled and requited made me a man

and oh, the cost to wish to
being back in my time with you
I lack cure of funds to balance what love's done
to me to know without it what to do
I'm back on the road alone, stepping
trying to find another way through
each morning, each evening and each memory
that led right up to your leaving
I'm a whale: dying, flailing with my being
pierced by your silence's harpoon

we met under unusual circumstances
two Melbournians in Japan
traveling through separate cities
by coincidence we correlated plans
and landed at the same place
and by spark of words and forward actions
became quick acquainted with each other
and founded our lust's sanction

and things sped along as compressed
like this they tend to do
condensed and saturated in attention
seems it burns out soon
but too soon as this is soon enough
for me to feel as though it was not due
I wish I did not hate you now
or you me as much as true
but for the weight of that word
it is not regret, for it's end we always knew
but it's pattern or haste I did, could not
confidently, preemptively view

that night I caught the elevator
back down to your level
and stood there the doors open wide
but for moving my head hung heavy
and I paused just long enough
for the doors to close on me
and with moving on today I wish
that longing from me you could have seen

if, for long enough you just could have seen
if we, long enough each other could just have seen


Friday, January 23, 2009

Smoke Rings Float Slow In Kyoto

light tepid steps
to where the air is still
let me in slow, so the smoke rings float
and night fallen swift
so I am a spirit
in the heart of here Kyoto
down some stairs
laid discreet bares a cafe
of ladies in the downtown area
I meet bartender Noda
and drink it black with care
to taste it and take photos

the room is small,
all in all five-by-five
with decor sewn in velour
crimson red and ivory doily,
crystal ashtrays, china cups
makes charming of this diner brew
you are not with me in this moment
but I sip and choke to think of you
yes, though skies grey
and tomorrow be blue,
I go home wishing of my hope you knew

to return to love you
and burn for us as I do these roads
but the wait I cannot ask
either my own heart or yours
I don't know when
I'll be ready to leave,
see this place gives only pleasure when I dine alone


Monday, January 5, 2009

Take Caution With Such Portions

not for all but some of what you do
I know I'll never fall in love with you
not for all but some of who you are
I know our stride won't carry that far
but I won't time-line when we'll come to end
or discount what you've already and continue to lend
I won't pretend you don't grow on me with every meeting
or let you believe that my every leaving is fleeing
in order to give fleet to the feelings I'm leading
you towards in order to hoard company greedily
and it eats me away; my hungry lust for your attention
and I must excrete waves of fake, untrustworthy affection
until finally you set upon a resolve as do I
to bed for the time being and hold close just a while


Why Dispose You So Wild?

you wearily queried why I dispose you so wild
and wishing to tell you the truth, I struggle so lie
'cause I fear to confide that it's simply in my time
I've only held lovers where such passion's a crime

and as ours with each kiss everyone shared so sublime
and for not knowing to look never did till now find
but such love's a viper and in discovery I'm reminded
though inspiring to admire for petting you risk dying



Saturday, January 3, 2009

I Wish I Knew To Tell You Sooner

despite the night we shared and that instance
there was still too much history to kiss you
though I wished to, the time we spent made it evident
both your past and mine is our present

and we let ourselves divulge our secrets
clear we were both subconsciously telling
the other we're hopeless at forgetting love
and it's wounds and their ever setting

into our assimilation of souls and persons
and further of our predictions and intentions
and as this journey begun I wonder of it where it's end lies
and what of that night you'll remember

the advertent touch of my arm you instigated
the gestures you advised reminded you of a lover
the silence of the drive descending our Sky High
or the final look between our eyes at your house and goodbye


other people waiting

we're not strangers anymore