Sweeping through unknown territory, gradually aware that the days are slipping away. Tipping the balance towards enlightenment. Student zone. Sunny slipstream.
Solar pool. Boiling jumper. Beautiful espresso by fountain square. Back-lane recklessness, chained to Google directions. We're humbled by Street View lies of phantom clubs that existed during that heyday. The eternal pilgrimage episode. Undulations mapping everything.
Dark Velvet. Freezing courtyard despite a baking day. Ivy wallpapers the backwall, with faint birdsong overlaying our waterfall's gentle rush. Brown beer washes down piping cheese n' ham quiche. The man, in official Dark Velvet t-shirt, always says 'please'.
Roving for Franz magnetsIn the night glassiness broken promises rise into the foreground. Long-missed opulence, Tretter's. Gleaming beacons. Spirit-bottles canvas. All notions sucked back in. Identikit flashback.
James Dean. Regal cushioned seats. Jukebox Madonna. Sensational myriad realities surge. Eventual re-zoom to the formative stint. Simmering bulbs. Rekindling the tapestry.
Becoming frayed around the edges. Awash with abysmal memories. Symmetry with burgeoning slipstreams. I fear my head will bulge under the endless regurgitation, slow-mo repeats relaying those former highpoints.
Night fading away, becoming greater night, getting bolder, eternally forever.
And into the finale. Almost completely broken, propelled still though by the day's flashback triggering. Cumulative intensity ramps up the redemption narrative. Reflection sparked.
Penultimate trudges through heatwave cobblestones. Early pints for the hearty Irish. Hunting Kafka. Young-life bridge, brought back into the fore. All roads the same but all roads a little bit different. Roving for Franz magnets.
Places help envisage earlier versions of me. At first, the outlines are sketchy but as minutes tick by those first times miraculously gain strength, their indomitable greatness looming crisp again as though never just the past's artefacts.
© Copyright 2022 John Maher