MARBLES

07 May 2015

In Memory Of Robert Thompson

1: Night

One by one 
Lights flicker and snuff out
The city is shutting down

A street organ is playing
Spinning the music of long ago

Songs of desire and loss
Songs of betrayal
Wine-soaked singing

Molasses the sounds
Drifting in the jasmine scented night


2:  A Dream

Come to me shadow and starlight
Come for one unmeasured moment

I want

Flesh to flesh
Interlaced

Your stubbled salt cheek


 3:  Salonika

They were two  
And holding hands
Before, I had known them as one and one

The girl's hair yellow like ripened lemons
Fell in sharp angles around her face
Her man laughed a confident laugh

He enjoyed laughter

I understood
Too late Too close to twilight
After the ravages took hold
I took stock

We wandered leisurely on the promenade
Heading westward toward the tower

It was a prison once
Its captives, who were they?
Bruised souls with forgotten names
Their screaming silenced now

and ashes, ashes
returning southward to a home lost


ashes moving through space
dispersing over the beloved hills
over the familiar sea

she carried her numbers, bright blue


4: Time

We sailed into the small hours

The two-masted caique was brightly lit
Its crew calling for passengers
He was first on the gangplank
And it was a floating bar we walked into

No particular time chuckled the waitress
We close when we run out of customers

Heineken with a light misting of seawater 
He said
This drink has a pleasing taste,
Produced by hugging


Hugging?

The gunwale with one hand
A mug of beer with the other

We swung by our table for refills    
As the boat rocked
As the breeze picked up
Our careless chatter
The broken clock
We are sailing still