after i had clipped the vines that climbed
and wound up walls and the telephone pole
and deemed the job well done-
the wildness tamed and shaped-

i felt justified in leaving the compound
the church walls and routines that encircled me.

***

there is a karaoke bar across the way
with grey greek women in frescoes
and in the narrow street to the left,
are many more of the same type
of establishment.

i know those places only by the remnants left from
the parties-
the cigarette butts that i would
on occasion pick up in
the cold ash grey morning
as a sign of
daily devotion
and service to the world...

***

the sidewalks are made of interlocking shapes.
i marvel sometimes at how complete those tiled floors are,
even the weeds cannot dig their toes into the cracks.

if i follow them, will they take me
where i need to be?

(or where i want to be?)

***

there is an arcade along the way,
and kids younger than i
are all spending their parent's spare change
on pornographic games.

i shuffle in disinterestedly,
keep my eyes drifting
even across the shifting squares
of the dangerous places.

you cannot rest your sights
anywhere.

***

they say a bat may be blind
but knows its way
by sounding walls.

if its call never returns,
then does it hold its wings
in close,
the folded skin to echo
its lonely cries?

***

at a corner, the world
leaks to the train station
and people walking in and out
slipping away or slipping in
with all their strange dust
and tiredness and excitement.

there is no holding the world
in any one place.

if you are tired of yourself,
maybe you can take a trip
to someone else?

***

there are mountains with boulders in the near distance.
and before those are small apartment buildings.
life goes on in those tiny apartment windows,
like bees shuffling about in hives.
do those busy honey people ever stare out their windows
with their skinny compound eyes
squinting back at me?

would they see me, or i them?

or are we really blind
in a vast cave
screaming to avoid each other
and stay alone?

***

there will be times when i return to the trackless moments
i will seek a toehold in memories
but only find these souvenirs,
the clip of vines,
used cigarette butts,
patterns of sidewalks,
a mosaic image over frontal nudity,
the magnetic pull of metal tracks,
a distant woman pausing.

your eyes cannot rest anywhere.