Amsterdam

Taking my nightly stroll along the canal
I notice that my shoestring
has gone untied,
and I must bend over to tend to it.
The night breeze catches my face
sideways, turning loose hairs at my forehead.
Standing quickly rustles the haze in my eyes
and suddenly the canal is moving again.

Like so many dreams of pictorial beauty
that surpass the truth in exisntence
I find myself transposed, reborn
to the dream in which I find myself standing.
I am awake
since my mind won't let me supplement
reality with allusion, however;
it proves just as stimulating, as profound,
as the mind's hopeful, yet hopeless, fiction.

Covered boats rock gently against the canal walls
sending ripples out across the city
while the yellow glow of street lamps bathes the darkness
in a consumé of red brick, black iron and green leaves.
The night air smells floral, as if
at once, the bulbs at market exploded into beds of tulip.

I continue to walk along the canal,
when I notice...

                                my shoestring has gone untied.