Old Man Parkstreet.

Music wafted out to the thoughts on the street,
wandered down the noisy alley
Full of old ballads etching each arch;
Staring whimsically at the crowded eateries
Through puffs of smoke and memories.
Firm and young were those days
Still the acrobat jigs within with each visit.

Books littering the street got some unfastened stories.
Of love and liquid women
Of coming and never leaving.
Perhaps so many of them got carried away to different shelves
Some limping and some martyred.

There were musicians and lovers, dancers and bards
'This street throbbed with live bands at night,
serving perennial morning coffee'
I saw nostalgia creeping up her warm eyes.
'We visited Mag’s when I had little money
She loved the tea in there as I loved the smile '
He sighed
I live in the nostalgia of wandering times
Years I sat enthralled, a bride,
little more than a child on a new street,
with thirsty eyes to live some golden mornings and pink nights.
sharing brewing cups of yesterday and today
with an old man and his beautiful memories
so full of 'The Street' beneath.

An ensemble of mansions stood hemming my fairy tales ,
corralling an expansive sky
Roofing within my right to fiction.
Of changing leaves and bleached views
Of changing vignettes and different tongues -
Of sweaty dance floors and of flesh(l)y cravings.

Spirits and the Spiritual in cassocks both walked these streets.

The white sahiba with their Derby hats left much in the brown in me.
Love came clutching
when my old man's bright shiny eyes
lived with his memories of his Armenian girlfriend
in a sixties town across the road.
And when the chanteuse locked herself out to work
the blues danced and glances devoured.

The Armenian and the French both lived in pieces
Smooth and on the rocks  
So did the emerald flowers and the red hammers on the wall.
Each saw its day,
arrive and loosen its way
in a spacious gigantic history
of apolitical warm croissants.

Shared with a long gone husband
left like those generous tips on the tables
and the conditioned air smells stale.
choosing between  now and then
full and devoid of remains.
A strange city aches within,

The sap-green moss clings to the neighbouring cemetery walls
as monsoon submerges all and death
and some unkempt story lies,
enclosing a tale untold.

Each has to travel to timely and untimely deaths
Many years had to begin here and had to end.

The cuisine sends its aroma afloat
of grilled ducks and buttery lamb chops
then came the American burgers and intervened
They came, they conquered and they remained.
Enjoyed with two little hands and delight
Each story has different times.

My old man planted the flowery trees
that grew outside our window.
Did he know I would arrive some day
and see the flowered boughs?

Behind the flowers the street still lives
with inconsistent humans and consistent memories.
And all the sins have found its way to churches.

So they renamed it after a saint.
But Old Man Parkstreet will remain in you and me
Tucked in my eyes and its nostalgic other side.

Parkstreet (Photo from the net)