the licks

 All these sand swept parapets in this desert of another’s dreams. Brutal dunes and burning winds and the bright feathers of some beautiful bird. Another story of depths and breadths and the epic stretches of existence. Bright stars and cool oases, a song spun from the dross of every song spilled along a traveler’s tale. Time has a way of wearing you down. Bright lights, big city, the way you look tonight. All the roads at once, your twilight glamours, my rusty misdirects and my cheap reveals. The story keeps going, beyond and between us. I settle into a sad magnanimousness, love like the loves says, whatever the licks I take. The dreaming runs thick between us. The days flock before us.

The shadows brace the steeling sky, breathing its blue towards gray, the weird patina of this startled atmosphere as the sun ducks and covers. Dogs barking and the bassline giving way to bongos, sirens and strange birds and the breeze groping around. The stillness as the light appraises the stations of the hills and houses, clinging to a yellow, tugging at a green as the last glimpses are offered up. I burn leaf and flower, I smudge the sky, and feed the ashtray. I brace for stories and stars.

The sun is gone, the streets go grim with traffic and stray crows. The surrender to shadow as the twilight clasps us tight, the dog that barks and barks always in the dusty distance, the last gathering of beast and bird as the gloaming blooms into night. Cars that speed and slow, brake lights all aglow and the wonder pressing in. I stretch in the crush of all this bone and skin, gravity and gravitas crossing wires somewhere in the so and so, this pushy tomb and these glib enchantments. It goes gray as the earth turns away, flinging us through day and dream, laying out the labyrinth each night. Alone you go, and I will always go with you. All X and no map. The new moon paves the way.