not sure how many words

[Angeline]

I saw a billboard today
well, a row of billboards
about a mile long.
Thru them I saw
a piney forest,
scrubby and broken.
There were no smiling faces
or dancing cows
on the billboards.
There are no places
to go
to see
to visit, and hear
"Y'all come back."

All I have are two hands.
a tear in my eye
an idea
and I will see
the billboards glaring
again. Soon.


Hi you guys! How are you? Hope you don't mind me dumping this here. It just happened. The devil made me do it! Love youuuu!!

Hey sweety! So glad to hear you're well and that you made it. Please post here anytime, of course--it ain't a closed thread.

We're fine, both working hard and waiting for the weather to get colder and colder and...

T sends his love and says I'm making "remarkable progress" on the guitar (he said that to me last night, he did lol). And look. Mista Denis Hale published my Halloween story on his blog.

Thinking of you always, sis.

 

[eagleyez]

Mining for riches,
Mountains and Mother lodes,
Silver and gold.
Yet You find only holy water
At the bottom of the well
And Instead
Drink a muddy handful and
Bless thy self for the

Love of childen
Can be as a pickax
Burned like a Blister
Peeled off my shoulder-
Barbed wire
Speeding trains
I'd lay down for you both
Hip waders deep
Where time means nothing
The truth steams up thru earthen cracks
And in the melodies of the wilderness,

Holy water
Its Vitamin time.

 

[eagleyez]

Double stops
Bend the G
And the B
Simultaneously
Create a Wilderness
Invent the atmosphere
Holy Holy Holy
My news has no Deathplans
Or headlines of misery
It slides from the seventh fret
Down hill to mindless 3rd
Gladiola stairsteps
Strange fade of deeper red
Into continuous Sundays
Grab the six
Switch to the twelve
Minutes move
Like Cottonwood
And Amber Birch in the northest wind again
Before a bundle walk
Into the forest-
Mystery of my own-
Prayers above the pinestraw morning.

 

[BooMerengue]

a long time ago in a faraway place...

lived a dream of a sound
that told the world of love gone bad
of cottonfields and pattyrollers
families made and lost on a whim
or a bad roll of the dice

the sound's dream slumbered
deep in the souls of men
and women marked by poverty
lashed by storms of
intemperate selfishness

finally taking root in a place
made of history and legend
of happy sins and wild abandon
and the dream grew
and wailed out

across the land
calling to those who
had a need so deep
they'd forgotten.
Jelly Roll a Professors Professor,

Tony Jackson and King Oliver,
blowing the dream into notes
sweet enough to make one cry
setting souls chained in misery
free, to fly and to be, once again...

Storyville
a Southern Camelot

 

[eagleyez]

Hiya Boo-

We have been thinking and praying that your safe and managing to stay healthy and rested in the work you are doing down south.

I cant tell you how much I respect and honor your sacrifice. Dont hit your thumb with a hammer, ok?

With all affection.

T.

 

[BooMerengue]

Hiya Boo-

We have been thinking and praying that your safe and managing to stay healthy and rested in the work you are doing down south.

I cant tell you how much I respect and honor your sacrifice. Dont hit your thumb with a hammer, ok?

With all affection.

T.

Thanks, ee! I'm doing fine- not hammering though I am building a sandbox this week. For 2 little loverlies!

It is so devastating here, though. Thats why I quit posting- where do you start? We went to Keesler Air Base today and were shocked at the carnage. It truly does look like a war zone. The Biloxi Back Bay swept over the base in a 40 foot wall of water. The damage was horrendous.

Later we finally found a way to go down Rt 90- it runs along the coast right on the beach. Who knew a $500,000.00 house could be smashed just as easy as a tar paper shack??

I have a meeting tomorrow (I hope) with the Red Cross to find some volunteering in the evenings, and am trying to get on at the Veterans Hosp on weekends.

Estoy apriendiendo Espanol. Like... Lukie, no! Caliente! or Venga, Lukie! or Donde est Lukie? (Lukie is an adorable redheaded 18 month old who smiles so sweet and travels at Mach speed !!)

ahhh... Life is good! (and I don't say that lightly Ange! I mean it!)

Miss y'all. Take care and keep posting here- I love it!

 

[BooMerengue]

I wish I could have been this lady...

What a story hidden in that quiet smile.

She is one of the Ladies Of The Night in Storyville. I wish I could see what she saw and hear what she heard.

 

[eagleyez]

I wish I could have been this lady...

What a story hidden in that quiet smile.

She is one of the Ladies Of The Night in Storyville. I wish I could see what she saw and hear what she heard.

We'd all like to hear that one. Good to hear from you and that your not bustin your ass physically as much as I imagined.

Again, all respect, from me and the Poet of the household.

Birdbrain.

 

[eagleyez]

no need to unhinge the
palace door
to paint it a
new color-
it swings both ways
and reveals itself
like oxygen in a breath
when the settled sun
spins automatic a newer latitude
further south in your chest's wilderness.

 

[eagleyez]

Today
She had 3 quarts
Of fluid
Drained from her Belly-
With a cough that busted
Into her town
Like a grimace.
And I kissed her
In May
And may lose her
Anyday.

 

[Angeline]

This, he says, is the hardest part
when they move from your outer world
inside. I wonder is the dialogue
my invention, the parts that are new
as opposed to the repetitions
of Saturday mornings past
among lilacs and spelling lessons
on the bench by the rose arbor?
The ghosts in imitation silk
that whisper trick-or-treat are real
ghosts or figment-spirits
of my secretlogue, but I can still taste
the Maryjanes, still crinkle Pixie-Stix dust
on my fingers that you can't see.
Now they are all ages, growing
and shrinking, their voices deep
and kid-squeaky, their timeless
every age I ever knew is ageless.

They say Buck up, girl. Here
we are, and they laugh at me
just to show me how ridiculous
I am believing in ghosts. They say
It's always darkest before the dawn
because ghosts could give a fuck
about cliche. I keep asking them
why the darkest dark lasts so long
and they laugh at that too
because I know nothing of time.

They don't laugh when I write
these poems. They look gravely
satisfied and I look gravely unsettled
thinking of the weight of bodies,
houses, cities, my god it goes on
forever, trembling in my cage.
He says you write, that's what
you're built for and I say yes,
that, and loving you.

 

[eagleyez]

Worn thin at seven
Wide awake at eleven,
Retreat again in the box of sound
Sirens and Pioneers
Distortion pedals
And Dulcimer descending
Towards dawn
And the crackling stretch to
The last of the Warming Sun.

 

[wildsweetone]

you guys always make me think when i sneak in here to read your words.

thank you

 

[eagleyez]

you guys always make me think when i sneak in here to read your words.

thank you

Everyone gets in free in this dive.
No Cover.

Come often, if you have a hankerin.

We serve words, with no chaser.

Tip your muse well...*smiles*

 

[eagleyez]

Lonsesome slow banjo
where the Sea meets the road
find my shirt
find my shoes
scattered papers
on foreign shores
the sweetest melody
of a child's kitestring whistling,
the handrum of the watcher
sounds like a cannon
in the rain-


grown
up
stepstool
catches
some
eternal
skin falling away
I
wish i could
eat
but i
just want
to play.

 

[eagleyez]

Sirens Dooryard
Pleasure palace-
Muddy boots
On vapor steps,
A wisp of riverfog
Arms crossed in the cold-

To lay it all down as the
Accordian
Breathes,
Far off, starfields
In harmonic
Lands
In this I only
believe.

 

[BooMerengue]

Sirens Dooryard
Pleasure palace-
Muddy boots
On vapor steps,
A wisp of riverfog
Arms crossed in the cold-

To lay it all down as the
Accordian
Breathes,
Far off, starfields
In harmonic
Lands
In this only,
I believe.

Hear the difference?

Hiya Toots! How are you? A- OK here. Where's your other half? I've written the same letter twice and no respnse. Am I on another shit list for some reason? 'Cuz I'm blowed if I know what it is!

Love you both Brazilians!!

someone told G Bush that a Brazillion had died. He shook his head and said "Oh no! Thats awful!!" Then he whispered to an aide... "How many is a brazillion?"

 

[Angeline]

Hear the difference?

Hiya Toots! How are you? A- OK here. Where's your other half? I've written the same letter twice and no respnse. Am I on another shit list for some reason? 'Cuz I'm blowed if I know what it is!

Love you both Brazilians!!

someone told G Bush that a Brazillion had died. He shook his head and said "Oh no! Thats awful!!" Then he whispered to an aide... "How many is a brazillion?"

No. I love you like always. Just busy busy busy busy as a bee.

I'll write back this weekend when I'm not exhausted from racing around for 10-12 hours at a shot.

 

[eagleyez]

amen amends

"Son, ya cant bury your past like lost towns or
Some mean dog shot and killed
In a muddy dooryard of backspilled grounds."

He handed me a shovel,
Instructed me with every
Muddy memory,
When the hole reached my Knees
I stood in some strange holy water
And filled the whole
With the fallen leaves
And red hewn stones

Where soon enough the ice foils
The spade
And warmhearts
Accept and make kindness amends
Amen.

 

[eagleyez]

She said,
As we crawled
Like a reverb Banjo-

Your love is like
A shadow of Danger.
And a slide steel Dobro
On the lap, in the Wires,
Harmonized
With the Northern Line's
Whistle across the river and
I said I think its a C.

She asked
The lap steel?
No I said,
The train.

 

[Angeline]

She said,
As we crawled
Like a reverb Banjo-

Your love is like
A shadow of Danger.
And a slide steel Dobro
On the lap, in the Wires,
Harmonized
With the Northern Line's
Whistle across the river and
I said I think its a C.

She asked
The lap steel?
No I said,
The train.

Bake me a steak and broil me a sweet potato, baby.
~Zendomme

 

[eagleyez]

May I tune the Six?
Cause I have time-
To put on the copper slide and the
Pajama Rhyme.

 

[Angeline]

May I tune the Six?
Cause I have time-
To put on the copper slide and the
Pajama Rhyme.

I'll get your blue flannel.
Let's relax. Play, let me hear
open tunings showered in
violet, wrapped in ribbons.
Eventually the rain will
yield, darkness falls here
over the barn and deck.
Uncover the stars.

 

[eagleyez]

Taters and
Cinnamon,
Sinnerman
Stakes
Gold panners
Claims
On Ghosts,
The Welldiggers
And
The Most minus the
Less than the less-

She peppered
A meal
Of meat and
Spiced Lavender,
Walks my crooked floor
My Backbone curved
Towards the middle-
The flower fiddles
While I rebuild Rome
In my home,

"can you reach that for me
a key to an empire?
good till the world falls around doors with
suns over Missouri by now,
promised for tomorrow
and neverending after that,somehow."

 

[eagleyez]

Shostakovitch
String Quartet
D-Minor Morning
5am
after
hours of
talks unceasing
a cold hand
is taken by a warm wing.

She runs before
daybreak
for cooking oil-
smoke rises from
October's river
I make scrambled eggs
Smoke rises from
my fingers
and dissappears up there
with steaming coffee
like a dream...

I will toil with my hands
One hour left
to get an early start
and she will
start her day
by sleeping
and my prayer
is one for
the sweeter slumber
both of us
like a dream...

my hands
are like a ladder
rungs up to there
good enough,
this day a gift.