Travel Vignettes

Cafe at night

Steel cages rattle

Slam the stones

Over every store

Each painted pretty

in a different flavor of graffiti

Like a theater wait

And hush our voices

The sun drops and

Fingers of light recede

Lingering in the old town

Rainbow hues fade from the city’s crown jewel

But deep in the streets the embers remain

Sun baked tiles grow cool in streetlight glow

Shadows toss up across wrought stone facades

And lamps bathe the bustle in spotlights,

The cobblestone streets a new stage, and night’s curtains drawn wide

Burst of song drift around corners from street performers

And squalls of laughter spill into the alleys like beer running in the cracks

Decorations of thousands of crenellated lights erupt across the street

Draping the city in every color, like a splendid gown awash with neon

Through the main strip people pack and pearls of revelry come from every restaurant

Blood pumping through a dancer’s veins, giving life to the old bones of the city.

Winding alleys

The sun bakes down

Across buildings wound

Into cool, damp places

Quiet awe lights tourist faces

And store’s hawk shining trinkets

The quiet, a hasty blanket

A tenuous veil from the bustle

In deep winding alleys lustful,

for adventure people wander

Discover books bound with leather and dust

Or masks with catchy feathers

Resplendent, otherworldly busts

The crowds fade away,

Noise like sunlight filtering into

A deep pond, and find what treasures glint

In the mud and the fishes.

Waves over the City

The sun sparkles on white-capped tourist heads

The ebb and flow of human tides, frothing,

Crashing in the squares, trickling through the streets

Voluminous they break and bubble away

Over rocks and deep alleyways

In their absence, a waiting hush

A catch between breaths

Like the empty soda cans they leave behind,

Hollow, adrift, and sinking fast

Then the waves come in raging crowds

And like a toddler get swept into the tide pools

Too verdant, too choked with seaweed and critters

With claws and ridges that scuttle and hide in nooks

Snapping away curious fingers drawn by their painted shells.