Coffee Sunday

Today is certainly a coffee day
Not as the mass of ordinary days
When coffee is a drink, of course, that may
For pleasure be consumed, but as a haze
Requires sunlight to put burnt asunder
So coffee on a day like this must serve
To scorch the mind before it can go under
And make it choose to be awake, and swerve
Away from drowsiness. Coffee can do
Miracles that other drinks cannot;
Energize the body through and through
When it is served up strong and piping hot.
Today was made by coffee at its best
Even though it was a day of rest.

Roaches

The lights approach
The track is clear
A lone cockroach
Is scuttling here
Away from that
Oncoming train
Lest he be flat
But we all strain
To be first on
By pressing in
And when it's gone
With such a din
The roach is sole
Among the whole.

Sidereal

Half a moon is just enough to make
Me see the beauty we once saw together;
Shining high above me, through a break
In London's so notorious bad weather
It promises to wane and wax again
And in the interval to let me roam
Back to the place where I began, and when
At last I have returned to my own home
It will shine just as it has shined tonight.
But then I will be with the one I love,
And we can share the brightly glowing sight
Joined in our hearts in admiration of
The way the moon connects our days between
Past joys and those that yet are to be seen.

Rather

It would be rather silly to pretend
I don't want to be with you every night
And show you everything past which I wend,
As if you were a second to my sight.
It would be foolish to imagine I
Do not desire to be close to you
And hold you close as we both scan the sky
Bringing the latest full moon into view.
It would be wrong (and very wrong) to say
I would not wish for you to share my life
Never to abandon me or stay
(Although I cannot promise zero strife)
And as I wish you to hold faith with me
So will I hold with you, and happily.

Are

Were you here
I would be
(Let's be clear)
Happily
By your side
Holding you
Now I bide
Waiting to
Chat online
So that we
Can combine
Psychically
Over space
Sans embrace.

Listen

The way you speak is comforting, by now,
But don't imagine that by that I mean
Your words or manners have forgotten how
To make me listen to you. I am keen
To hear you speak forever, nor am I
Lulled into inattention by the sound.
Rather, I drink it in as it goes by
Wishing they had no terminus or bound,
Watching your face, your hands, your eyes express
Your meaning as your voice and they combine;
Loving your altogether loveliness
Of which they are but a beloved sign
And thinking as I listen and observe
How much more is your love than I deserve.

Commercial Zoning

The sudden bustle of a little hub
Only serves to emphasize the space
Between, just as the dirt beside a shrub
Attains no special or distinctive grace
From such juxtaposition, but instead
Shows all the more dull brown beside the bloom.
So these small zones of industry that shed
Their light upon the black asphalt don't loom
Larger than the gaps, the empty streets
That seem but more deserted by compare;
For where the cheering light at last retreats
There is no comfort left us anywhere
And no one cares, or dares, to walk the city
Except in little pockets. It's a pity.

Real

When I'm with you I know just who I am
And when I'm not, I still am certain. Yet
There is a part of me I'd wish to dam
When I'm alone, and let myself forget.
For when you leave me, then I miss you so
That everything I see reminds me of
The happiness that we together know
And I am saddened by your absent love.
But now that I imagine losing that -
Being without your face before my eyes
When they are closed - the world would be but flat
The sights all dull, the sunset and moonrise
Insignificant did I not feel
My love for you to make their presence real.

Curfew

The glow of neon on stone storefronts seems
A false enchantment promising void heat
And every shut shop shows unfinished dreams
Barred from completion by the steady beat
Of unimpressed and all too concrete time.
The night implies what it cannot deliver
Catching imagination in quicklime
Only to watch it struggle there, and quiver
Unable to escape, to move, to breathe
Caught in the bare reality of dark
In which the terrors of the city seethe.
No wonder shops are shuttered like the park;
The day has left, and in the harsh half-light
Dusk's promise turns to lies by bleak midnight.

Exploration

The streets are empty and the night is cold
My breath fogs up my glasses as it goes
I have known many nights that fit this mold
But something in the air this evening slows
The passage of the time. I cannot walk.
Each step seems stuck in amber. As I try
I stop. I think of how we used to talk
On streets like this, filling each other's eye
So that they seemed to fill, warming with smiles
The frigid air until our coats seemed wasted
Compressing into single strides whole miles
Savoring the joy that we had tasted
In sharing time. But now we are apart
And memory has stopped me by the heart.