Valerie Roney

10 thoughts on “Sohbet – Late Night Street Sweeper”

1. home isn’t quite home
   til I’ve walked home
   from downtown
   Saturday night
   touring my cousin

   claiming the roadway
   on the beltline street
   with the best arching willows
   entirely blessed
   following his long legs
   over the unexpected fence
   of construction between us
   and the freight tracks

   crossing the river
   beneath the freeway
   watching that memorized last bus
   go past
   just a few blocks from home
   is more home with
   my first guest on the futons
   in a hodgepodge of sheets
   the blanket his mom wove me

   doubling wonder
   calf deep fresh april snow
   wet enough to build a fort with
   white and round on the branches
   on the grasses
   overhanging the icicles
   thicker than cream
   unseen above our heads

   by jyanti

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   1. LoveloveLOVE this poem jyanti! Feels like I was right there with you. For whatever reason, futon guests is what caught in my brain. Here’s my reply:

      A space reclaimed from broken hearts.
      Fold-out futon of my own.
      A place once full of clutter
      …and harsh words.
      Now has room
      for small child sleepovers.
      Solace in crisis.
      Kitten-piled movie nights.
      Sweaty entanglements.
      Long talks in the dark with far away friends
      …and strangers-come-friends.
      A whole life lived out on a fold-out futon
      in a place now my own.

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   2. entirely blessed
      with snow thicker than cream
      such delightful quiet
      like a Saturday morning
      curled up in my warm nest
      of fuzzy sheets

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2. It’s 3:00am
   A different city …heck a different hemisphere!
   So far from home and yet I remain my old sleepless self
   Carrying whatever ails me all the way to Buenos Aires

   What made me think I could leave it behind?
   The ghost of past travels of course…
   and the realization that when I’m in motion I’m not terrified
   So right now I need to be on the move

   I’ll look at the pain another day
   Right now it’s too thick, too suffocating
   Right now I need to stop this city from closing in on me
   And find a little relief

   Give myself the reprieve I came all this way for
   Give my soul something easy to feel good about
   Like being on a bus to Bolivia!
   Outrunning the terror that pervades me to the core …for just a while

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   1. Wow Darren, this too blows me away. (such great poems on this stream, I’m floored!)

      Very powerful, very REAL …for lack of a better word.

      It calls to mind what seems to be my go-to song these days. I think it’s meant to be a break up song, but to my mind it feels like a song for that time when everything falls apart – the necessary annihilation before a new beginning. Hits me in the guts every time.

      James Murdoch’s Break Me Down

      Don’t know if you can load youtube stuff in S America, but I’m sending that feeling, that ache, that courage, all the same.

      Much love,

      v.

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   2. my demons come
      my demons go
      the boomerang bend
      the freedom of flight
      of a gull’s wings
      my me demons
      sea not required
      I’ve never been to any land
      forlorn of gulls
      I’ve never run out
      of footsteps
      rocking me
      on firmament
      walk
      breathe

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   3. Your words spoke across the miles to me. Thanks

      I also ask myself “What makes me think I can leave it all behind?” One year I kept reading books about disappearing and I kept asking myself “What if…” Only to realize that I was the one who needed “to give myself reprieve and give my soul something easy to feel good about”.

      poetic response:

      Like Alice searching through the Looking Glass
      at another world
      wondering what it’s like in that other place
      dreaming of new experiences
      new people to meet

      only to discover that the mirror
      is reflecting what is behind me
      is reflecting me
      in my own world

      full of those new experiences
      and new people
      and undiscovered parts of myself

      surrender to
      the terror of the not knowing
      ease into the space of fear
      it’s evidence that
      I am alive
      embrace the courage
      that lies deep
      in curiosity

      be the child
      that explores
      without agenda
      only for the pleasure
      of exploring

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3. hey Darren,

   I think you’re the Darren I know. I think you can guess who I am. (Shh, it’s a paranoid internet secret.) Anyway, I started writing mostly to say, you’re not alone in your baggage. (And wow, Buenos Aires!! Bolivia!! Have you read Eduardo Galeano?)

   xo jyanti

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   1. I am! And I did guess who you are, thanks for the hint! And no I haven’t read Eddie’s work. I’ll be sure to Google him though. I’m not paranoid …but perhaps I should be?

      Here’s a follow up to my lament …it was right after a Tango class:

      Terror
      It pervades my core
      manifests in the form of fear and anxiety
      An elephant sitting on my chest

      Very little moves it
      Travel is one thing
      Touch is another
      Tonight, I touched

      A tango lesson
      A dance embrace
      Nothing intimate
      Yet passion ignites

      I feel connected again
      Part of the dance, so to speak
      I am so utterly baffled
      By the workings of my heart

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4. late night.
   feeling empty
   and full at the same time.
   sleepless
   and tired at the same time.
   ears pick up every swish
   every drip drop
   every scurry.
   feeling every dip,
   every bump,
   every tightening and loosening…

   that’s it!
   Too many sensations
   to experience

   going back to my breath
   in
   out
   in
   out
   …..

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