Snapshots

[PrinceMyshkin]

On my way to an outdoor table,
espresso, newspaper, notebook
in hand, I catch sight
of a sweet-looking young man
hunched over a fluorescent-green
plastic Playschool computer,
the kind, he confirms,
developed for kids in impoverished countries.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” I ask in response
to his mild accent. “Nein.”
“Where...?” “Sweden,” he answers.

“Welcome,” I say, extending my hand
and offering my name.”Simon,”
he says and grips my hand
so sincerely that if I were a woman
I’d be pregnant now

[paperleaves]

“Welcome,” I say, extending my hand
and offering my name.”Simon,”
he says and grips my hand
so sincerely that if I were a woman
I’d be pregnant now

You are absolutely amazing. I love the above part..

[kiz_paws]

A lazy, sunny Sunday
at the café.
A heavy-set man
urges his body up the street,
a helmeted woman cycles by
with an infant on the upper bar
of her bike, a smiling young woman
walks her dog,
two elderly women
whose comfortable companionship
is almost palpable

This little snapshot left me feeling quite cozy indeed.
It was those last three lines, Jer. Awesome, as always.

On my way to an outdoor table,
espresso, newspaper, notebook
in hand, I catch sight
of a sweet-looking young man
hunched over a fluorescent-green
plastic Playschool computer,
the kind, he confirms,
developed for kids in impoverished countries.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” I ask in response
to his mild accent. “Nein.”
“Where...?” “Sweden,” he answers.

“Welcome,” I say, extending my hand
and offering my name.”Simon,”
he says and grips my hand
so sincerely that if I were a woman
I’d be pregnant now

Exquisite. No one says it like you, my friend.

[Xillus_Xavier]

I was interested in checking this poem out because of the huge number of replies it has received. I can see why it has now and I'm glad I got a chance to read this excellent, excellent poem!

[PrinceMyshkin]

A short Oriental man
in flip-flops
shuffles by my house
each morning, a child
beside him or holding his hand.

The look on the man’s face
is so resolutely non-committal
I wonder at the fate
it’s meant to defy.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Waiting for the supermarket to open
I catch sight of two
antithetical characters:
a mousy looking woman
whose clothes seem intended
to make her, as much as possible,
invisible,
and a man with a scowl
and a five-o’clock shadow
that reaches from the neck of his t-shirt
to his dark, bushy eye-brows

[PrinceMyshkin]

Adrian invites himself
to join me at my table
along with his Modern Library Edition
of The Works of Plato
and we have a good
mind-banging discussion
of consciousness, reality
and psilocybin mushrooms
in the cold, bracing
morning air

[PrinceMyshkin]

At the Snowdon Deli,
at the table across the aisle from mine,
a customer receives his smoked meat,
lean, no mustard,
and a plate piled high with fries,
and immediately attacks them both
like a man on a mission

[CdnReader]

^^^ No mustard!!!??? For shame....

[kiz_paws]

Waiting for the supermarket to open
I catch sight of two
antithetical characters:
a mousy looking woman
whose clothes seem intended
to make her, as much as possible,
invisible,
and a man with a scowl
and a five-o’clock shadow
that reaches from the neck of his t-shirt
to his dark, bushy eye-brows

Jer, this snapshot is brilliant -- what more can I say? These two characters came to life in how many words? Awesome.

At the Snowdon Deli,
at the table across the aisle from mine,
a customer receives his smoked meat,
lean, no mustard,
and a plate piled high with fries,
and immediately attacks them both
like a man on a mission

Ha ha, this made me smile.
And wonder if he wiped his face with the side of his sleeve ...

Great stuff, as always!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Here at Loblaw’s
there is no agora
but the faux-tiled floor
of the fast-food area

where descendants of Plato
and Plotinus gather
to chew the fat in rapid, demotic Greek.

The stuff that they and I eat
bears some sort of resemblance
to actual food, about as much,
I guess, as their small talk does
to The Republic

[poetman]

sad and beautiful, i like.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The short Oriental man
who slip-slops daily
past my house, pauses,
while the little girl beside him
–black, black bowl-cut hair
–fiddles with the catch
of her wind-breaker.
He has nothing but patience

[PrinceMyshkin]

“$1.39,”
the billboard reads:
“double cheese-burger.”

I walk by, wondering
how they can make it so cheap
and so nasty

[PrinceMyshkin]

The reciprocal smile
of a passerby
is to me a nano-second love-affair,
the whole of which
is bliss!