experimenting with the present tense

Ghosts appear and fade away in yellow tinted rooms where dry winter sunlight filters through papery yellow curtains. Picture such a room, now, in a small home in southern Italy.

The walls are lined with cases of butterflies, printed flat with great effort and care. In the left side of the room there sits a red couch with rural, idiosyncratic patters in yellows and soft greens spotting the surface. Dust coats everything here, excepting a small writing desk, on which sat an inkwell and a lamp with a stained-glass shade and an ebony stand.

There is a man in the room, with half-closed eyes and skin of a dark tan, reminiscent of a native of southern Spain, or perhaps Morocco. In his left hand he holds a paper cup of coffee, probably from the small coffeehouse in the neighboring alleyway. In his right, he clutches a stack of letters just acquired from a post-officer whose relationship with the coffee-drinking man went back no less than sixteen years. The man sits in a small armchair immediately to the right of the door to the room, which looks out the window, to the left of which sits the desk.

As he sifts through the mail, he looks down upon a name he did not expect (and yet fully expected) to see. Immediately, he stands up and walks to the desk, dropping the rest of the letters onto the armchair.

His gaze tightens into a grimace as he reads what she had written him; an inconclusive cry for help that had less substance than the quad con panna he sipped slowly, steam wafting up and around his nose. As the sun passes behind a cloud and the space is darkened, he picks up his pen and begins to respond.

He begins with:“dearest _____,”. And at that, as light again flutters into the room, in a silence so acute that the wings of hummingbirds would harmonize with the drop of a pin, he discovers, for the first time in a long time, that he is at a loss for words.

there is an elegance to streetlights;

like someone took stars and hung them from the earth,

carried the mystique like a bayonet and lit the giant’s pathway north.

i can still hear the ringing of the cars,

a sweet symphony responding to forgotten conversation and mythical stares,

like shiny young hipsters lost in the glory of the mainstream or two stupid kids who (i hope) could feel more than just the moonlight,

but somehow i doubt it.

somehow i doubt it,

because anthem way and metal bars and terms of service and cars and streetlights give way too fast to one sided feelings and never seeing anyone ever and talking once an month and listening less

there’s an elegance to streetlights;

they paint the way for giant’s footpaths and traffic-jams and radio music and rhapsody

such is the road to chicago

such is the road to hearts

such is the road to feeling and forgetting and not wanting and living and dying and screaming and crying and laughing and listening and never talking and never seeing and never really feeling like they care, even if they do

but, i think there’s some hope left for our tumbling little world;

i think there’s an epigram that reads all your names alongside mine

i think i can dig it

i think i can bring my friends more than a streetlight ever could

or maybe not.

Four

There was once a great kingdom, and its great king had a beautiful daughter who passed her days in solitude, weaving garments for the pleasure of her father. One day, while she was sitting beside the great river, peering across, she saw a handsome young shepherd boy leading his flock through the pasture. Immediately, she fell in love.
Thereafter, she became terribly disheartened, knowing that, due to her duties at the loom, she would be unable to pursue that love. The king, aware that by his bidding such despair had befallen her, felt great remorse, and arranged for her to marry the shepherd. There marriage was one of happiness from the start, and everyday thereafter they grew happier and happier. However, in immersing herself in her marriage, the princess had neglected her weaving and the great king became angry. Unable to reconcile with that anger, the great king banished each of the lovers to opposite sides of the great river, allowing them only to meet once each year: on the seventh day of the seventh month. On that day, a ferryman would carry the shepherd boy across the river to the princess, and return him home at day's end. However, if the princess has not fulfilled her obligations at the loom the king floods the river, and the two can not meet.