Tweeting a suburban wandering

I went into town recently (one of the major cities in Israel), and had many interesting experiences on my trip. I tweeted about some of them. Here's a list.

A pretty but very 'dead-faced' girl sitting on the bus:


her smoothest face / 
to hide behind, until / 
betrayed / 
it slit with lines and broke / 
into a smile.
(tweet)

... and in haiku form:

lipstick plastic pink /\
face unearthly smooth and flat /\
pretty in her shell
(tweet)

... a bus meditation:

sitting still on rumbling bus.
thoughts rolling under the roar.
wondering, wondering: a silent chasm cloaks me.
(tweet)

... on the bus was a very tired-looking old man who sat opposite me:

I saw the old man /
droop and fade /
slump and shrink /
eyes dim /
face grim. /
so tired; so old and tired.
(tweet)

... the sun hit my eyes as the bus turned and moved:

the sun skipped out from behind a tree, blinded me;
I closed my eyes, dark inside, felt collapse calling me.
(tweet)

... the sitting writer, an island in the swirling masses of humanity moving past around him:

he sat and swirled it all around;
ducked out of the race and watched it all go by;
pen in hand, open sparkling eye.
(tweet)

... and a musician trying out a guitar in a shop window:

sat young man /
behind glass shine /
strings in hand /
faraway eyes /
dance his fingers /
watchers pine /
walking by.
(tweet)

A Way to Make You Smile

Here's some simple - but perhaps profound - words. Not mine.

I've found a way to make you,
I've found a way --
A way to make you smile

I read bad poetry
Into your machine.
I save your messages
Just to hear your voice.
You always listen carefully
To awkward rhymes.
You always say your name,
Like I wouldn't know it's you,
At your most beautiful.

Yes, this is from 'At My Most Beautiful', by the great R.E.M.
Give it a listen.

Actually I always thought it was describing a guy trying to get a reaction from his beloved, who was hooked up to medical machines, perhaps in a coma.
Reading the lyrics, I see it's not about that. It's just about leaving a message on someone's message machine.
But the simple sadness in the music is profound at any rate.

who'd have thought?

who'd have thought
    the man could teach me?

my soul-calming river-rushing moments came back to me,
and I relaxed, and let down my walls
to look beyond his smell and his shabbiness.

and then he began to sing. I coaxed myself to be calm,
to remain opened, to look beyond...
perhaps he's one of the hidden ones,
who challenge us to see greatness, if only we will look deeper,
look beyond...

he sang an ancient melody,
and it warmed my soul, as I sat there motionless,
listening, and keeping down my guard.

he sang and the holiness in what he flickered towards,
in what he aspired towards,
touched me and soothed my soul with comfort.

I wondered after he had gone -
and I barely knew what to wonder.

mindmap

mindmap, to get your thoughts out,
straighten them out, on paper:

mindmap, feel
the threads and strands begin to exist,
draw quick lines,
link words, feel
brain-ways click! and cogs engage

mindmap,
a dream is a word, and the castles of the air
are yours to build;

mindmap,
be free, break the walls
of your brain-prison, think
out of the straight and narrow ruled lines:
think big! think joined!
think everything is linked now,

blink, begin
to see things differently.

--------
Image from here.

singled out late

and there they all stand
already begun,
and here I come,
late and the clock ticks with every step
I take, making me late, making me late.

the shame and the pain
of sticking out so plainly,
in front of them all,
in front of them all, innocently guiltless,
passively okay, done nothing wrong,
all's good, all's fine,
but who's this guy
coming up late? who does he think he is,
bringing up late?
can bend the rules? disobey
what we all keep to?

who said he can be late?

and the unthought thoughts,
that I plaster onto their foreheads,
brewed and fomented,
frothed and hydrated
in the panic of my fevered mind
crash cymbally onto my face,
into my ears,
and my pain mounts, I am chastened
by
myself in the lonely silence
of coming late and
sticking out so sorely,
like
a bruised thumb.

---
Image from here.

your selfishness; my pants

selfish
or just blind to the thought
that other people may exist,
beyond your own eyes and Freuded wants.

I left my pants, harmlessly hanging,
neatly creased, doing you no harm.
You want the bed, so you take my clothes
and dump them in a creasy crumple.

I understand you want the bed.
But what
did I ever do to you?
what did my clothes ever
do to you? that you drop them like that

and the added kick
of the fact that in the end,
you never did take the stupid bed
frustrates me just a little more.