Tuesday, May 17, 2011

quiet twilight

quiet twilight, honfluer terrick williams

i sit on a bench on the opposite shore
and wait:
shadows dance along the street
and swing into the cafes
soft flickering yellow light
and songs burst outwards
released on a wave of warm air
heavy with wine and candle smoke
love offered and coyly rejected
a kiss
long and soft
settles on the thwarts of the lone boat
rocking softly on the ebbing tide

14 comments:

Ruth said...

I have walked the Liffey early in the morning and in the evening, and the light in the painting, the reflection in the water, is reminiscent. I also hear the Irish songs spilling out from taverns. So these already tilled the soil for pleasure and tenderness. Then your lines of love offered, a kiss on the lone boat is just a gorgeous, soft caress.

OceanoAzul.Sonhos said...

steven, your poetry is deep and penetrating. The kiss that lands in lone boat rocking softly on the ebbing tide, takes us for a imaginary world ...
oa.s

steven said...

ruth there are lots of stories that pour across that canal and i let the kiss have the final say! steven

steven said...

oa.s, the story that follows that kiss is indeed a transport into an imaginary world!! steven

Reya Mellicker said...

I would love to hear that story ... the one that follows the kiss. Sigh.

Love your new profile pic.

Also: YES. Dawn is noisy, but dusk is very very quiet. I never realized that before. Thank you!

Jo said...

The energy from the light, the music, and the offered but rejected love, bursting outward from the cafe...yes, of course it would create quite a kiss for such a lovely night.

Beautifully expressed, Steven.

ellen abbott said...

lovely observation.

steven said...

reya the stories hover for some time after i write their beginnings - or endings here. my hope is that in the fullness of time, i'll be able to trace the threads of their lives back through the catalogue of my writings and bring them into completeness. steven

steven said...

jo thankyou. there's a gathering together in this painting that i was sensitive to and i knew that it led somewhere beyond itself. it's so cool that you sense that also. steven

steven said...

ellen - i love to live for lovely observations. steven

* said...

Shadows, soft light, song, and a lone boat rocking. The longing in this...oh, the longing.

Tess Kincaid said...

Don't leave. I'll be right there. :)

steven said...

terresa - in a word - the underpinning . . . steven

steven said...

sweet tess! steven