Tony Walton

Tony Walton · at Saturday, November 25, 2017

Tony Walton · at Saturday, November 25, 2017

Tony Walton · at Saturday, November 25, 2017

Tony Walton · at Saturday, November 25, 2017

Tony M Walton · at Saturday, November 25, 2017

At a Loss

A man with not much to lose,
searching purpose, island hopping in his sailboat to
somewhere,
ran into a storm and safely docked at a small Caribbean island
about 2 miles in length populated by about
a thousand islanders - mostly fishermen. It had clean streets,
tidy New England style clapboard houses, cozy pubs and a
blue-green lagoon with fishing boats sleepily nodding in the
water. He docked the sailboat and wandered into the
pub close by, ordered beer and grilled fish and watched the
rain falling through the porthole window
The grilled fish was fresh and light and the beer cold
The fishermen in the pub seemed unhurried, with quiet eyes
They bantered with the bartender in a cool pleasant way that
seemed familiar to the man - it echoed a
simpler time and place. The waitress was ethereal and attractive
with a clean laugh - and talking with her stirred feelings of

nostalgia within him.

He finished the meal and drank another beer while
listening to the rain pattering on the tin roof - cocooned by
blue seas and thought:
I should stay here and not go back home. A man could reinvent himself

in a place like this. I will make some inquiries

But the storm passed and the fishermen got
back on their boats.
And as if by nature: The man returned to his sailboat,
undid the lines and sailed away slowly, listening to
gentle waves washing against the boat.
As the island became smaller behind him

he did not look back.

2 01 PM on Saturday Afternoon

in the Caribbean

Just 200 meters from the shore

I am shirtless

a flopped fish on the boat deck

gazing at cloud patterns above

the great sea yawns

through another 2 o'clock day

as tourists lay at

the water edge like cuts of cane

waiting for transport

the sun moves through the hours

I close my eyes

and listen to the sea babbling to itself

a butterfly, with a delicate hurried look

slapping the pages of its wings

lands next to me and I begin to talk:

I talk of the pleasure

of the days

about the sweet cup

of the thing called life

and how good the sun feels

warming my shoulders

who would have thought things would be so easy?

suddenly the boat lurches

and then, far off, on the shore

the plaintive scream of a child

an undecipherable refrain

11 months in London

As I turn left off Oxford Street
cloaked in a low sky and shuffling
along with the other furrowed brows

I search for the accents of my youth
"Tomato" or "Tomahto" or "Tomata."
"Aunt" or "Ant" or "Auntie"

Punching my cold fists into a
Harrods jacket I enter the tube,

shortly reaching a grey gray
station and see the pub with an
old fashioned clock against the
familiar liquored mirror,

damn, it's way past our meeting time,
and
am I at the right place?

I really could go for
comfort food now, we need this

Connection

"Buffalo Wings? " Or is it "Fish and Chips? "
Maybe "Saltfish? "

Which of these do I want?
Eh, it's too late for such a search.

A sudden hiss of wind
angrily flaps my jacket, and
a raindrop

taps my shoulder—
as a stranger does when they have
wandered too far and need
direction.

The rain falls.
The sun falls.
The fog falls.
The days fall from the harboring arms of mothers.

I walk alongside the parceled flats,
pausing at a low bridge and look out at
the bruised dusk of the Old World
as the wind swings my bag like a beacon
against the cold.
Oh, come now - and dance with me

Caribbean.

New Orleans Sunday Morning

The morning sun peeks

into this hotel room above bourbon street

our silent breaths take shape

hers, and mine

Radiant silver glowing on her thighs

it is a fleeting bond, fragile and drying

a fog as sweet as farm milk

floats above the cigarette butts

on the sidewaks below

and the janitors come in trucks

and wash the liquored streets

with latte steam

her blonde mane falls across my chest

and if I stepped out of my body right now

I would break into a blossom.

The end of a day

This day is ashamed of itself

and wishes to be done

in its defense it never asked to be born

anymore than the rest of us

who are lost within it -

drained and dazed in its haste

staggering across concrete

staring into flickering screens

and the eventual falling apart of things

is the only payment that arrived on time

there is nothing left to save of it

so I have another beer at the Kings Head

and watch a woman slumped over a gin and tonic

her gaze blank into her phone

I walk towards the bartender for one more

as the air fills the spaces that my body has been

There is a quiet violence in life

I rather like it

Driving Away

I am writing this behind your back,

actually in the passenger seat

beside you,

and we are driving towards

the horizon for days

floating to the southern parts

of the country

out of soft dawns

At night we disappear in a haze of

random rooms of liquored mirrors

Two shirttails in the wind

Waking in the mornings

to maddened birds and sunlight

adrift, moorings cut

sweeping out to unpaved places

barely discernible from a distance

a mirage, soon disappearing now

driving to a place where we

invent our own ending

that comes out right.

Happiness

Oh, my friend

you have got to

create it

invent it

reinvent it

choose it

work it

revise it

hatch it up

hunt it down

then you have to lose it

and then

find it all over again

the gods make plenty of happiness,

hell, they give it away in bundles,

but

few people have it

so be on the watch

when they offer it to you.

It is a beautiful struggle

and the only one there is.

Bolivian hotel after a confidential word

with the concierge

As I step down from the chicken fluttered bus

I'm hit with a blast of popcorn bag heat

opened directly into my face and I glide through
the cheek and jowl streets with
tangled knots of aromas from street market stalls
I feel life flow back into me(!) as I
grow nearer and remove my aviator shades
perching them on my head with my left hand while

my right hand confirms a lump of faded colonial pointed nose men
aiming towards the bar recommended by the fuzzy diced

1995 caprice classic taxi driver with a broken air conditioner and

I see fleshy tropical shirted gringos appearing uncommonly popular

at Las Diablo Bar.

She holds eye contact for 5 glorious seconds

and slides through perfumed air towards me

and I rewind to a time of

cars and lakes and

cascading hair

and beery mirth and

soft touches and the freshly packaged
newness of youth that the counsel of

my years will not surrender
and I become intoxicated by the whole

damn thing and soon we are

stumbling into the sharp edge of the city
through dying light
past corrugated iron and angry graffiti.
We are sniped by well aimed stares of

lost possibilities from women whose

arms are thick from lifting children.

Their eyes have no flicker.

These things cause

our buzz to fade a little

and we become less tactile as

we reach a concrete squared house with a

sleepy hammock and mongrels and dusty children kicking a ball
and a grandmother slowly and silently lifts her face

towards my mumbled greeting

but her hands continue their soapy toil.

I find myself in a bare bulb room with a

picture of Jesus that I remember from childhood Catechism

on the wall and an old iron post bed with thin sheets and soon

I see this:

The symmetry of her face, close up, is melting.

Her lip curves slightly up on the left side as

does the right. Matching almond eyes

with a brow of gentle waves and laughter that

occasionally breaks into flashes of

sadness.

A child is conversing in the

next room in animated tones playing with

a (formerly) blonde one armed doll who is

competing with a tube tv

broadcasting a Brazilian soap opera.

A rooster crows, a reggaeton

car thumps by and the

street noises converge
into a disquieting hum.

We shift from grip to grip to grip as

a tired oscillating fan moves slowly

left and right and left, as if

in disapproval.

Pete

My friend Pete is a good man,

been with the Company for 9 years,

married to his wife for 7 years.

He quit drinking 2 years ago and is quitting

caffeine this year.

He wants to eliminate

gluten from his diet next year.

Never had an accident (caused a few, though),

cuts his grass every Saturday at 9 a.m. sharp.

He's always on time,

and his shirts are neatly pressed

At conferences, I see him grinning over the

top of a cup of white chocolate mocha with soy,

and I always wave my vodka in his direction.

He is what women call "solid," and then

they say, "well, it was time to settle down, and

he was there"

and I can understand that.

He will likely pass quietly in the night,

with that "peaceful look" spread across his face.

I often hear his loud clean laugh at parties,

happy and content,

as I fuck his wife in the pool room.

5: 07 Pm At Coconut Joes Bar

Perched on the stool with my feet

hooked into the rounded footstep

I

am

Preened

eyes scanning quest

who suddenly appear

and I lock onto them in the cool Revo

shade of the liquored watering hole

displaying bleached fangs

at striking distance as

skweeking noisy groups

of twos and fours engage

in skittish gossip

I am base and knuckled and

primal – no affectation of

enlightenment, evolution, religion

or Gloria Steinem

technology ancient in

gelled hunt of perfect

savagery with a

denim cloaked tool

seeking prey

before closing time.

A Blink

It can take years to get things sorted out,
whatever it is or was that keeps you static.
Sitting there waiting with only your self doubt,
while all around you life moves on and you're stuck
in a slow motion scream.

We are all moving towards a conclusion,
it's something that our dance with destiny cannot
escape. Sure, there you go trying to reconfigure
life's illusions.
All I'm trying to do is advise you-
a problem shared is a problem solved. So look in the mirror
and tell me what you see - and be honest.

These Questions we have and
Answers we want,
they are like an Ocean. And we just float on the surface,
fearing that we get drowned. Can I tell you my friend - this life,
it's flying by in perpetual motion. And what could be -
can pass you by
in a blink.

A couple on a Sunday Drive

There are no disagreements as we drive along,
encased safely in the car, a road
split by the center line.
Practiced vowels, consonants and syllables
roll predictably with the hum of tires. Each topic
measured as the roadside poles,
the conversation's selected tone
mirrors the
ca-thump ca-thump ca-thump
of the the paved highway joints.

We stare at the windshield and
think of things that must be said - instead,
the words shift, twist, and turn
in our mouths
like worms, then sit angrily,
before we
brood them out of separate windows in
silence and

continue down the road
somewhere,
the receding light of the sun
searching through glass then
fading
in the rear window,
frame by frame
until the light is
gone.

Dear Lady

I brought you everywhere
heart racing beauty and
your razor wit, ravaging you in
dark places seen only by mirrors

But
Now we go nowhere
goldfish in an unquenchable bowl
looking at the spinning clock
through a furtive window and

raging until the angry shafts of light
cut through blinds scorching
regrets and sworn goodbye
too deep, too fast
a damn mistake for

you are shallow as dust
on a table railing against reason
taking gold with your straw man soul

What pressure you put my blood under!
But my heart has charged and
I have cut your credit cards

Leave

In Brighton, a suburb of Denver,

at 6:03 pm on a Tuesday, a woman

in dark shades is seen careening through

a yellow traffic light turning red,

grinning straight into the windshield

days rerunning behind her:

41 Christmases, 3 mortgages, 4 cars, 5 dogs

7 expired drivers licenses

2 slippers under the bed

Days fill

Nights fill

Glasses fill

Calendars fill

Beds fill

She never fills

But what life did she expect?

An ant is crawling across the

knuckles of her driving hand

He knows the answer but

he's not telling her

Radio rising, orange tip of a

cigarette sparks the dark

out the window

a light beer in the cupholder

she eases down on the pedal

humming rubber on white concrete

going somewhere:

factories without smoke drowse soundless

ships sail from distant harbors

cars run silently at highway rests

numbered seats fly across time zones

the world continues to

be the same

without her.

The Girl In A Yellow Dress

I saw you yesterday in a yellow summer dress,
the color of high dosage diazepam, through the
rain streaked window of a familiar bar, as I walked by,
somewhere in the city,
and I could swear you saw me, then turned away -
like that moment when a bird decides
not to eat from your hand. I had not seen you since
graduation, but I thought you should know this:

I hit harder in schoolyard fights when
you were watching (and you did watch!) .
I tackled harder in rugby matches when you
were watching.
I ran faster in races when you
were watching.

There is an August beach photograph of you and me,
in our 19th year, tumbling hair, greedy as seagulls.
Maybe you've just been all the wild in me.
Some pictures don't come down easy from the wall.

It's been years of small victories and large defeats and
drinks poured,3 cars,2 dogs, expired drivers licenses,
landlords, mortgages, and 15 Christmases.
Are you happy as you thought you would be?

I'm just lying here, writing you this email on
these hard springs. So let's meet at that bar, tomorrow. Yes?
Don't worry. All is well here,
but
there is Something Coming towards me
across the floor. Oh, it just a rolling bottle of wine,
this
time.

There is a place in me that is never filled.
And this is where I am likely to be found.
If you can find this place - Do Come In.

Tony M Walton

The Real Culprit In The Matter Of Love

Walking alone one windless June night
fear looked at the clock and asked,
'So, was there love or no love,
and what or who is to blame? '

Ah - Indifference. Though born of love,
it has no lover, circling slowly,
patiently with dull eyes,
peering below at the growing
empty spaces between words,
then plunging down

scattering swirls of feathers,
leaving hope bewildered and blinking back
a million tears of rain falling on the
upturned face of the sea.

But so you emerge with quiet eyes and
draw the curtains to a rain fresh morning and
the surf smooths out the new pages of white sands.
And the soft roar of the day
begins.

Tony Walton

To Hell With Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath And Rothko!

Awaking from a delicious dream I turn in my bed
to face the sea window and peer through quiet eyes
towards a fresh orange sunrise that looks painted
in oils, as it emerges from the inky depths
into slivers of sirrus clouds spread against the clean
baby blues of a canvassed
Caribbean day and my dog and I bounce outside,
only to see a blooming green pair of parrots who have noisily
flirted in the animated foilage above for weeks.
Today they finally

kiss, rub heads, chatter and make plans to
Carpe Diem! - as they feast on
purple grapes.
They
are
getting
down

like James Brown dancing
on my radio and me driving,
top down, even the stop signs with cheery red faces
seem to hold up a hand and say HEY! - and traffic lights playfully
wink at me along the way.

It is Friday and half day at work. The fire alarm abbreviates
this day perfectly, and soon the phone buzzes my thigh with
messages of, 'We R here! ' and 'Hurry up! ! ' - and I drive
along with the

sun kissing my left shoulder.The sea to my right sparkles
with diamond caps, and the waves
kiss and pull away in the covewith white water thrusts of eternal
pleasure.
Soon I pull under the cool green leaves of
almond tree shade and
enter the pub aside the sea and there is that
moment:
I spot
my table,
friends,
one potential lover, and
they smile and
wave me over to perfect pints of beer,
giant glasses of
red wine, and a jug of red sangria.I feel

settled.A coolant of content
flows through me.

I will just stay here.

Tony Walton

This Is How It Is -

The little ant stood on the edge of
the curb, to avoid being stepped on
and looked down,
as the city crowds shuffled by,
faces clinched to another
average day.

And someone noticed the little ant,
on the curb's edge - and shouted
to the ant, 'Jump! Jump you little fucker! '

It's tough out here.

Tony M Walton

Tuesday 1: 37 Am

She had moved to her bedroom
almost a year ago,
existence: it deepens
like a coastal shelf

It is now 1: 37 a.m. and she
hovers over a laptop and

scrolls through the faces
embedded in rows of squares,
each person digitally trapped
in windows that cannot open.

A New Years Eve Party:
Her mother looks out in the photo,
as if the photographer
is saying something complimentary,
she holds a beer, her father is holding
a glass of wine.

A day at the beach:
Camera in front of her, Ocean behind her,
Her eyes are wet and still, a boy dozes
next to her, the tide came in later.

A snapshot of a marriage:
Michael is starting to turn his head
a little, with his eyes looking slightly
to the side. Was he beginning to
leave her?

She wants to open these frames,
stacked in towers, straight down
and across, and let the people leap out,
one by one, but to where?

The light from the screen
pours over her head, through her
hair, down her body and
forms a puddle around her.

She cannot hear the faces screaming
her name from the computer,
their sounds drown in the fluorescence
as she reflects in this light and then
becomes It.

And this light floats upwards
filling all the shadows and
outwards escaping through the darkness
like a summons to the white spaces beyond
this narrow focus

to where she imagines to find herself
among the pale weeds and the sands
trying to blossom

Tony M Walton

Today's Agenda: Seize The Day

I want that thing that Lord Bryon
panted after, coiled around my ribs
and pumping, blood rushing to that
warm glow of oblivion.

I'll plot like Macbeth with my trophy wife,
ruby crown, twisted knees at my feet,
wading through power, til it's over my head.

Before me lies the shoreless seas that
Columbus saw, into that jagged wind,
no sunlight reached, punching those
hard sea caps westward.

I've practiced that cashy swagger of
Gatsby. Looking down through long French
windows from the leafy hills above.
Society page, big house - here's my
check.

This is how to live! - blazing across
Van Gogh's Starry Night, swimming in the
swirls and brushstrokes of that hot orange moon
and those boiling stars.

But a light afternoon wind caresses my nuzzled
bottle of beer whistling a soft dove call across the
City Park overhung with white oak trees and
coins of sunlight and

I take a swig and lie back in the sun, tracing a smile,
so grateful I called in sick today.

Tony M Walton

Punching the Moon

There are delving days when the ink blue sea whispers to me

in a sexy voice, “Come over here boy, and give me a kiss.”

“Hell no girl! I am not easy like that! Anyway, I have

too much to do.”

I want to get cashy and swagger with America,

drunk with England on cool draft lager,

dine with France on her clean white linens with shining silver,

then turn to Italy, her eyes of tawny pools, and say,

“You and I are going dancing with Brazil.

We’ll splash across the Atlantic and

samba all night!”

Some days I feel like punching the moon out of sight,

swatting down the stars,

pouring the oceans down the drain,

and switching off the sun.

There are nights when the skies thunder with revelry and streak

with disco lightning and the rain drinks champagne

and mother nature, with her thousand Arabic pleasures,

sways over to me slow thighed….

But I’ve got to finish the laundry now – I’ve got a ton of it to do.

Tony Walton

Night Scream

This night has nothing to be ashamed of,

and just staggered in this place at last call -

drunken and unshaven, a kind of fuckless orgasm

with no one to tuck it in bed.

This night has roamed across concrete,

faced neon beer signs in liquored mirrors

with hollowed eyes seeking reprieve in

thirsts and pleasures sought.

This night is curious.

This night is weak.

This night is drenched in vodka, diazepam -

forty miles from nowhere, wild and bewildered

in a ceaseless thrust.

This night aches.

But then we see this:

Two bodies galloping against each other under cool sheets,

a shudder, then a glow of silver on her thigh, drying.

A bond, however fragile. Until morning when it takes flight and then it's gone?

Oh, who the hell knows, but I do know this night will stay in bed.

A Message from New Orleans

On the day the vet came

and took my dog,

he had broken loose and run

into a car,

I received a message

from the daughter

of an old college friend I knew,

up North.

The message had come

with happy emoticons

in the subject line

with colors of blue and yellow

I opened it and thought

I was being invited to a wedding,

(we had been out of touch)

or maybe an announcement of

a birth -

he could be married and

announcing a child

My friend has died.

(And I cannot seem to keep a dog alive).

Visitors

They come for you-

in old fashioned hats,

from where you don’t know,

to fuck you hard against every wall

you’ve built up.

They know how to pick all your locks,

break through your firewall,

blocking all exits.

Out of mirrors in small rooms with

flickering televisions they stare into your

flatness outlined in twisted sheets.

You give them food and wine,

trying to appease them.

You smoke with them, but they never mellow.

They’re like gods of a certain kind and

know all your devices.

Imagine what they’ve cost you in

Priests, lovers, advisers?

They’ll come for you and

they never stop coming

until you die, or

they die in you.

But, maybe there’s

something else wrong,

besides

them.

Indentation in the Female Psyche

There has been an empty space to the
left of her for some time.
All that remains is an
indentation.

Those who slept on that side were
kind,
some she will not forget,
others are
forgotten,
Some stayed for just one night
faithless arms and legs entwined,
others for years and years.

Once
a wanting voice flailed against the
gated silence, until exhausted and left there
in the empty spaces between words,
for the less loving one was
rarely her.

The corners of her disobedient
dreams flash images
in which the empty space grows,
like a stain and
she is awakened
drenched in silence, her breath pooling
around her. Some time ago there was

a lamp on the left side, mens fitness magazines,
and a watch of some rugged wear,

now the leaves of the trees tremble on
windless days and their circling rings
advance into evening. We must ask:
What will become of this left side?

Ah! But stop!- and not overanalyze!
Rationally there is a tantalizing thing that
she declines to see:

Through those curtained windows
under these same stars that we sleep
down winding streets
humming with air conditioners
behind the manicured lawns with
cool sprinklers,
each night,
there are many such
indentations.

A man with not much to lose,
searching purpose, island hopping in his sailboat to
somewhere,
ran into a storm and docked at a small Caribbean island
about 2 miles in length populated by about
a thousand islanders - mostly fishermen. It had clean streets,
tidy New England style clapboard houses, cozy pubs and a
blue-green lagoon with fishing boats sleepily nodding in the
water. He docked the sailboat and wandered into the
pub close by, ordered beer and grilled fish and watched the
rain falling through the porthole window
The grilled fish was fresh and light and the beer cold
The fishermen in the pub seemed unhurried, with quiet eyes
They bantered with the bartender in a cool pleasant way that
seemed familiar to the man - it echoed a
simpler time and place. The waitress was ethereal and
attractive with a clean laugh.

He finished the meal and drank another beer while
listening to the rain pattering on the tin roof - cocooned by
blue seas and thought:
'I should stay here and not go back home.A man could reinvent
himself in a place like this.I will make some inquiries.'

But the storm passed and the fishermen got
back on their boats.
And as if by nature: The man returned to his sailboat,
undid the lines and sailed away slowly, listening to
gentle waves washing against the boat.

As the island became smaller behind him
he did not look back.

Tony M Walton

An Afternoon

Tony Walton

I am doing nothingat the pool todayclouds drowsing abovesomeone is bombing citiessomeone is screaming in trafficsomeone is stuck in a broken elevator I scratch my belly andfeel the butter warmth of the sun on my shouldersI am without the noiseof any language, and awayfrom the toil of habit

I am away from the dotting of i’sand the crossing of t’s that has

become each day after day

I would ask you to stay stillas if you were absent from yourself and you hear me from a distanceand now be silent, for a while, just breathe in for 3 secondsnow breathe out for 3 secondsKeep breathingand I will do the sameI will now close my eyes, and lie here with only the sound ofthe bees in the grassand you will stay quietand I will do nothingand you will understand the meaning of my escape.

Tony Walton isa photographer living in the Cayman Islands andhas been published in BurningwordMagazine, Literature Today,Boston Poetry Magazine, 82 Review and many others.His work can be found athttps://www.instagram.com/tonymwalton/

Tony Walton

Menu

Saturday, 25 November 2017

writing

Happiness

5: 07 Pm At Coconut Joes Bar

A Blink

The Girl In A Yellow Dress

The Real Culprit In The Matter Of Love

To Hell With Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath And Rothko!

This Is How It Is -

Tuesday 1: 37 Am

Today's Agenda: Seize The Day

Night Scream

Indentation in the Female Psyche

Search This Blog