by John Philip Gethring
The camera shivers through
a quiet touch of eye contact
shuttering a fracture of time’s square-ness.
In it, friends dress
tastefully gross
formed to styles of denim queens.
That of generations not present in their age.
Evermore interesting,
the billow of cigarette smoke
shaping to a spray of iris flowers,
purple, when is thought of dream. And so
broken are the laws of literature and singularity.
Turn these haunts to falling weeks
as fabric to the weave
mechanism to the water.
The drive home keeps us partly in motion,
into the night and its flaw.
A variant of red darkness creeps across
her face, headlights bursting her
skin to roses.
The breath of rain fogs the road
and our bodies steam
behind sweating windows.
Watch air become heavy
with water, rinsing city lights to lambent phosphenes,
rub the
sleep from off our eyes.
And say goodbyes to where we met
our gypsy camp that sketched the
planet, inviting friends to be lovers.
Isn’t this all temporary? There’s too much
ground to cover.
Fit what we can in our pockets, stuff
them with finesses
of Grosvenor road, The Union
where early mornings danced in the smoke
of dry ice, light rays passing
through us.
River Thames, our muddy compass
dumping the city’s imperfections
into the North Sea and
sunny-day-architecture
folding with unexpectedness,
people sharing half-smiles for
the ephemeral splash of blue.
But our particles collided beautifully here,
in and out of moments,
what a mess we have created.
John Philip Gething is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, but is now based in the UK. His chosen genre is poetry.
Wells Street Journal 