Global Village Traveller , Poem by Mark Hurlin-Shelton ...copyright 2013

Global Village Traveller

I have awoken
with dreamy eyes
In so many unfamiliar places

On warm exotic beaches

under bridges
in inexpensive inner city beds

  I usually awoke alone
Sometimes to birdsong
or the muezzins prayer

In Cairo , Bangkok,  London, or Marrakesh
In Copenhagen,Casablanca,

Paris or Prague,
Usually In search

 of some extraordinary adventure

 to delight my restless heart.

And I have found
that dogs sleep lazily in doorways

 or wag their tails identically in all these places

That the madness 

of love, money power and need,
in every domain
Its all the same

I have noted
That children throw tantrums in supermarkets

 in the very same manner
in every culture, language,and tradition

And some days
a smile or kind word could make
the sun come out,
In my brooding heart,
with equal efficiency
,whether beamed from

 an Egyptian, Hindustani, Czech,or Thai.

I have travelled too far , too long

 ,down these many roads,
that all led me away from
Yet strangely led me further away from

but back
back to the memory
of a broken house.

Yet still,
man is man
And I am me

and I have survived
and wine and money freely flow
girls blush, boys bully,
Promises are whispered
and hearts break,
Young Boys, from east to west
In Bethlehem or Tel-Aviv
play with their toy guns

and little girls their dolls and skipping ropes

And the plea for love
In the hungry eyes
of solitary faces
in a hundred thousand doorways
all share one language.
Its human
And its mine.