Shoreditch / Then

I left my mind in Shoreditch then,
an era in a place like a double edged blade-switch when –
- things were so familiar but unacknowledged in any possible way,
like a place you see and walk past every day.

Detail & places you must see before you’re 69,
will make your mirth lines render you simply divine.
Like performances and fireworks Live in the park,
or just lighting incense and sitting in the dark.

I never quite put my finger on it,
It seemed a hazy blur.
Not knowing where cycles began and courses ran,
Like the audio was wrapped in fur.

I say tom/ah/toe, you say to/may/toe,
And my popularity makes you a jerk.
But eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart,
For God now accepteth thy works.

Now welcome to my hideout.
My timeout. My space away from the endless runabout.
It is sometimes dark, yet it can be extraordinarily bright –
Or like a shape that you may never completely make out.

It might smell of freshly mowed and very wet grass,
Or cut like you’re walking on shards of shatterd glass.
It can be kind and it can be restfully warming,
And its vastness can be remarkably disarming.

It’s my personality it is, my excess runabout,
my timeout and my space away from the endless muck-about.
And so what if I left my mind in Shoreditch that day -
Or at a place you see, and walk past every day...

Still...

If I ever get to be that superlative 69,
I trust my mirth lines will paint me truly divine.
I might be even louder then, and still run towards the might,
Or simply sit by myself, smelling incense at night.

It’s my personality this is, and my way to go within -
A me hoping to forvever wear, a happy-go-lucky grin.

© Dylan Balkind 2008


ref: Ecclesiastes 7