Did we Cross Paths?

The songs that I write do appear somewhere between memories:

I rolled my ankle down the Appian Way

Where Spartacus himself was crucified before Peter’s final days

Floods in Venice rose up past our frozen hands

To the streets in Rome as when Nero’s fiddle echoed across his land

In Morocco I am invited into another strangers home

Casablanca via Marrakech as their prayers echo beautifully across old towns

Bartered us to sail past Gibraltar and onto the Alhambra by the dawn

Granada music is in the caves with strings of light filled with song

Gaudi is in stonework around Barcelona beeches we sleep at dawn

Dali's fingerprints still show shape from while he reached new crooked heights

Trams run fast in Lisbon they cut tight corners as you rest

City mosaics reflect life in the warm Sintra sun

Calamari on the cliffs just beneath blowholes past Lagos

To move to my new home outside Brixton, London, in the United Kingdom

The sandy shores of Bournemouth with my family now across the sea

Tongwynlais on through Caerphilly into Kings Cross all by train

Brixton nights are as electric as they claim so in the song

On our rooftop we'd study Saturn and its rings as it moves quickly along

Arthurs Seat on the very top wild thyme still likes to grow

Kings and Queens and random things end of another fortnight at our toes

In Strawberry Fields I saw where John Lennon might have hung about

To the gates of 12 Bar's garden with my off sales soon fade

Last bed I took in Amsterdam on April 20th and completely by chance

Bathing swans in medieval Prague to ruin bars and baths

Budapest has old very old trains where many inventions are brought to light

Not far from Dachau soldiers and the old neighbours all share the blame

Berchtesgaden on boats in the lake the trumpet sounds

In Munich we just arrived and awake to our bags thrown on the ground

Eric Clapton was that you sat in that Vienna Central Park restaurant table?

The Eiffel Tower lit us up just like the champagne on our tongue

In Istanbul onto Troy where Achilles made his last stand

A bağlama song stops and we all should snap our thumbs

Europe just past Asia where the Ottoman's reign succumb

The lemons in Sorrento mix with Neapolitan art

Capri past blue grottos after an early Positano start

Ravello in the sky with gardens not too far from Pompeii's streets

Athens drizzles honey over cheese with cold white wines

From Paros to Antiparos with dune buggies off marble streets

Picking up local hitchhikers to show us around the place..

Naxos and the fruit that grow only just before the autumn

Mykonos and the burning sun past Delos that has long fallen

Santorini still reminds me of golden sunsets from our view

Underneath the Colossus legs to Rhodes where ships once sailed through

Mt Etna starts to rumble as we climb down from to the top

The Blood in Bruges it melts where Belfry stands so tall

Walk the walls around York from Cliffs of Dover red at dawn

Birthdays with dragon eyes in Dubrovnik to Mostar Bridge some jump

Busy streets in Berlin where the walls are down to stay

We danced beside a canal like we were lost and then found

Russian boots do still march in the Red Square where Lenin lay

Architecture much like Sweden on the cold Stockholm days

One dollar Pad Thai on some darkened Bangkok streets

Long tail boats to many islands remote our luggage on our feet

Ko Muk ocean caves they lead to tall jungle walls

Siem Reap to Angkor Wat sunrise to sun fall

Ho Chi Minh City did go dark power outage city wide

Hội An to cook via long pole basket boats made by hand

Hidden caves in jungle parks on and off sleeper bus to Hanoi

Always taking time to make new friends and adventures in Ha Long Bay

Longsheng Rice Terraces I hear they are nice

Yangshuo mountains over the Lijiang River we swim with floating ice

Hong Kong jade markets with dim sum and a view from bottom the top

Pingyao ancient walls and photobombs the ham lay on their grills

Sleeper trains to Shanghai where a "pool master" is in the dorm

The Great Wall far from Tiananmen Square where we travelled from Beijing

Nova Scotia full circle almost 2 years around the globe

Seven days driving snow and sun with Polar Bears, Guinness, and Dad

To a frozen Lake Minnewanka where I like to spend my days

Where Grizzly chase the Elk and Beavers come out and play

South to Joshua Tree silhouettes and breeze brings all to life at dawn

"In San Diego please be warned there are no free trips to TJ"

Laguna blues off an ocean cliff drive in a blue mustang open top

I imagine myself in Yellowstone Park where The Old Faithful still erupts

Teton Mountains so tall and jagged just outside of Jackson Hole

In Glacier Park we run and hide from incoming angry patrol

Hope, BC I will try to sleep crawling out our hiding tent hole

Olympic Park low tide treasures the west coast that day misty and cold

Revelstoke you see me all the way down those long mountain bike runs

Then a ferry ride to another side to Nelson BC by dirt

Tokyo ramen we laugh and we cry turning corners in the streets

On a bullet train past Mt Fuji foothills onto Kyoto before night

The torii gates and old temple lights we continue to search for magic

As my spider bite grew laying on a Ryokan mat nothing about it seemed tragic

I then usually think of Greenwich underneath a rare handkerchief tree

Enjoyed more with the richness of family and friends

In Dieppe my hero family rest with my father’s given name

They now drink together both legends they became

Flash forward to place I often live:

Mountains beyond the seas and many cities between

Usually with my heart on my sleeve or on my mind

In Trastevere, Rome I lived to return home before the dawn

The cobblestone street echoing off my feet fallen oranges on the lawns

Courtyards and turtle fountains with some that will stay forever lost

Continue to stand their shadows are monuments in time

Sistine Chapel I sit and ponder where The Last Judgement hang

From here I think of Florence where I might even die there someday…

Like Birds in San Gimignano hunt without hesitation

Through vineyards with little to no shade

Cinque Terre beautiful Chianti we learn how to survive a plague

By a man who drank the night away with fresh wine his wife made

My spongy clutch is sticky on the horse worn Siena streets

Saturnia pools are beautiful from the Dolomites a solid day ride

Mondello’s stretching coves are like blue rainbows washed in from heaven

Long haunting swims after late Palermo nights

Caravaggio has been stolen just beyond Stromboli with black sands

The Ear of Dionysius heard all the whispers off their land

Scala dei Turchi with broken white cliffs high along the clear sandy sea

Fires burn just off roads towards Cefalù with donkeys that need pears

San Vito Del Capo it rests just below the sun

Where thousands of strangers don't know me or where I am from

In Matera the sparrows like fly to the opera right at dusk

Not far from Alberobello...where the tutti houses smoke

Leece the baroque city some say the Florence of the South

We lived and swam there the whole Italian heel gelato often in my mouth

Eastern shores are rocky to where the west coast lay with soft sands

Much like beautiful Corfu and its double beach well worth the trip back up

Transfăgărășan with its winding bends we are always on the run

Sibiu has its trippy houses they all look to have many eyes

Below Bran Castle at a medieval fair as the day slowly turn to dusk

A woman with gold teeth served me cheese off her very used buck knife

Malta's stone shores around Valletta's outer walls I've walked to find my own way

Past coastal salt beds from 10,000 years or more evaporate salt from water all day

Cathedrals full of paint and flawless chiseled stone of

Bernini, Michelangelo, and even Caravaggio's who was banned from Rome

Again I'd cross a sea with friends and family in my mind

I often stop in Nova Scotia for an unspecified amount of time

NYC lights can lead to be more than meets one's eye

Every nook and cranny someone lived and died

Wake up today in Mystic Beech just outside Vancouver

Tomorrow morning I hit the road let's head to good ol' Banff

…with the good comes the bad

- AV