u/Ok_Map8485

From deep in a crook of my blinkered eye

Tilting, like breath, between my world and not

Comes warmth, understanding. A companion

Darkly quiet and undefined;

 

She reading her book and I mine,

As the busies chirp and the world rotates

Noisily, we waltz clumsy, eyes fastened

On linoleum floor designs

 

But greedy daydreams strike men blind

And forgetful: corner tenant passed on

by years prior, glided well away

Before any dance started—I

 

Know, yet daren't look; that presence binds.

For as long as the upstart gaze can be

Kept from flitting, the comfortable spell

Can be kept, suspended, in life.

A worthy day for a long tour,

No destination, just the drive and

Pocket-change wind in the hair; partway

Exercise in street-view cartography,

Mostway excuse. Camera-car takes all:

 

Floral noise, verdant fractal trees,

Branches swaying rigidbodied in breeze,

Transmitted by windscreen, edges blurred

Tastefully to suggest speed; near

Enough to feel alive. He does not

 

Know why, though, when they see the red

Stain vector inches short of its goal,

The others swerve. He nears the neon

Sea and, as the sun drops, the windows

Counter and the new climate is well controlled.

 

Just then, life, small and snuffling, caught

Glinting in his pollution, curious

Nose upturned at oncoming blackness.

Excuse always was mostway pitiful, cost

Still too great for the coward heart. He stops.

Feedback:

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A worthy day for a long tour,

No destination, just the drive and

Pocket-change wind in the hair; partway

Exercise in street-view cartography,

Mostway excuse. Camera-car takes all:

 

Floral noise, verdant fractal trees,

Branches swaying rigidbodied in breeze,

Transmitted by windscreen, edges blurred

Tastefully to suggest speed; near

Enough to feel alive. He does not

 

Know why, though, when they see the red

Stain vector inches short of its goal,

The others swerve. He nears the neon

Sea and, as the sun drops, the windows

Counter and the new climate is well controlled.

 

Just then, life, small and snuffling, caught

Glinting in his pollution, curious

Nose upturned at oncoming blackness.

Excuse always was mostway pitiful, cost

Still too great for the coward heart. He stops.

A worthy day for a long tour,

No destination, just the drive and

Pocket-change wind in the hair; partway

Exercise in street-view cartography,

Mostway excuse. Camera-car takes all:

 

Floral noise, verdant fractal trees,

Branches swaying rigidbodied in breeze,

Transmitted by windscreen, edges blurred

Tastefully to suggest speed; near

Enough to feel alive. He does not

 

Know why, though, when they see the red

Stain vector inches short of its goal,

The others swerve. He nears the neon

Sea and, as the sun drops, the windows

Counter and the new climate is well controlled.

 

Just then, life, small and snuffling, caught

Glinting in his pollution, curious

Nose upturned at oncoming blackness.

Excuse always was mostway pitiful, cost

Still too great for the coward heart. He stops.

 

As inconsolable skies, unable

To keep themselves together,

Loose at length their cold bundles,

These eyes, watching the window,

Cannot make much between it and

 

The moments when, seepdripping

Through the moss cracks dark above the frame

That will not fix, upstairs tries

To share, most generously, his cleansing,

Warm self-embrace with me.

 

Perhaps they know

In their dumb way

Something I don't.