voyage

May 21, 2023

CALLING

As I age, I more willingly accede
to the sirens call of sleep
for as night washes over me
pulling up its blanket of stars
she takes me on a voyage
to destinations she will
not disclose until our arrival.
The journey may be pleasant
or the seas of night can be
roiling, but her grip is firm.
But in her never certain world
age can slough off, fall away
until my body and its increasing
frailties and limitations slip away
and my youth is no longer
a memory, but on this night
or that, it is my new if transient reality.
But I dare not cling to it, for
the sun will intercede again
and drag me back to the body
I so willingly escape each night.

January 26, 2023

MID MORNING SONG

He leans against the wall
outside the Prêt à Manger
witting with his dog
on the old Mexican blankets
that look uniquely out of place
on a cool London morning.
He sips the now fetid coffee
in its Styrofoam cup,
its Burger King logo
and temperature warning.
His hair is long, mostly
gray with streaks of white,
his beard white
with swaths of blond, he
looks as though he
just stepped down the plank
of the great sailing ship,
returned from a voyage
save for his tattered, stained
Manchester United sweatpants.
I put 50p in his metal box
against my better judgment
and stroke behind the ears
of the placid dog.
“May you be many times praised”
he sputters, through teeth
stained tobacco brown,
“for with more like you,
Rufus here, and I shall later
enjoy a fine repast.
May Saint Dymphna be praised.”
In the taxi to Paddington Station
I wonder who my patron
might be, if Jews
only had Saints.

First published in Sideways Poetry Magazine, Issue Two
https://sidewayspoetry.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/london-issue-2-1.pdf