His life had become
A speeded-up film,
Moving too fast, sickly,
Each frame flashed by,
Too quickly, not settling
At all in the scrapbook
Of his mind. His voice
Was left behind, in rooms
Of strangers sipping wine,
Their politeness like fresh paint
Drying on walls.

He was always traveling,
In a plane, a bus or a car,
Yesterday was always lost
Above a garden of clouds,
In a station of tired faces,
On a table in a café
On a never-ending road.
He felt so alone, his past
Blocked off by each city’s dream
Of sky-threatening stone.
His dramas drowned in each smile.

The ash of his words
Smouldered in the books
That they bought and shelved
In their unknown lives.
He was losing himself.
His emotions rode
The conveyor-belts of their eyes.
He got as close as a lover
With his pockets of songs.
He wore the garments of death
With the laughter of a clown.

At night, when sleep played
Games with his soul
And the traffic smothered
His slow pictures of love,
New poems dripped into
The holes of his life
Below the garden of clouds.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2016

 Published in Selected Poems (Bilingual: English/Romanian), 2016