Visions of the World

I travelled at night
On quiet country roads
In a beat-up car
Through the valleys
Of my youth
Seeing visions
Of the world.

The wind rushing
Through my hair
Filling my nostrils
With the scent of pine
In the chilled rustic silence,
Punctuated by the sounds
Of gently swaying trees
And rustling reeds,
With patches of glowing
Lights illuminating
Small towns,
The twinkling stars
Fixed to the velvet sky
Like diamonds,
The green snake
Curled up on a rock
Next to the rusted petrol pump,
A lamp filling an upstairs room
With a ball of orange light
As the screen door downstairs flapped in the breeze,
And the old streetwalker smoked her last cigarette
While the children curled up in their slumber,
And the sounds of pounding sledgehammers
Mingled with hissing steam as the work crew
Pounded the nearby damaged tracks into submission
Waiting for their dying shift and the morning light.

I floated like a leaf in the wind
Carried over streets and towns,
Valleys and streams,
Seas and oceans,
Visions and revisions
Births and deaths,
New souls curled
Like new leaves,
Dead souls
Crunched and crumpled
Like dead leaves
Among cigarette butts
And scraps of paper waiting
For the mulch, blown by the wind
Into the flotsam floating
In dank streams and sewers
Gurgling to the toilet sea.

I travelled at night
On quiet country roads
In a beat-up car
Through the valleys
Of my youth,
With half a tank of petrol left
And half a pack of cigarettes
Seeing visions
Of the world.

The sky rumbled
And I touched the rain,
The drops fed my pores,
I ran my hand through my hair,
I lit up my last
Cigarette and waited,
Staring at the velvet sky.

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With a digital drawing from Nikos Laios

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