not sure how many words

[Angeline]

I know that darling. That is why my response was so obnoxious....

I love you too.

 

[Angeline]

Boy, you're quick on the trigger.

I had just started reading this on the other thread, thinking you wanted comment...went to get coffee, and poof.

I put it in the wrong thread--long day, tired and clicked in the wrong place.

 

[TheRainMan]

I put it in the wrong thread--long day, tired and clicked in the wrong place.

A wonderful weekend coming. Hang in there, Trenton.

 

[TheRainMan]

Nana’s Colored Angels

I recall oddities from grandmother’s house—
bits of banter at the sewing club,
the scattered rattle of teacups, the Times
piled higher than me. And her
glass angels. Their rainbow of goodness
glowed above the bay window. As a boy,
I thought they were too tiny and sad
to be important. They seemed to exist
in a chaos of crayon still life
like her bent knuckles, locked
in a limbo of a flightless pain. To her,
they were sentinels. She dusted them daily
with fingers as stiff as their wings
while the newspapers browned
to chronicle the death of her hands.
She wanted them pure, she said. Pure
and ready. They were
with her when she cried, watched
raindrops race down the dirty panes.
Day and night they stared outside,
waiting for God to call
from a vague heaven. That seemed silly
as I tumbled in freedom across the floor,
but I know now they would have shattered
without hope. They were as delicate
as her, held together by nothing more
than her wish to make them white.

 

[eagleyez]

Delightful.

Well Done Rain Man, as are the previous narratives.

 

[TheRainMan]

Delightful.

Well Done Rain Man, as are the previous narratives.

Thank you, eagleyez.

Happy holidays, you and yours.

 

[TheRainMan]

Questioning Immortality

He did brave deeds once, they say,
they kind that do not die.
Stormed shores, ate bullets
for breakfast. Look at his face,
got the scars and crazies to prove it.
That’s all distant now. Everything
is distant. He sits in a deep doorway
on Delancey, nursing crushed Marlboros
round. I wonder if he finds soul mates
way down there in his hands,
those butts ground down to stubs,
or just longs to fill his lungs
with a variant of survival, like everyone.
I’ve passed him in the morning forever,
every evening headed back
to my safe version of his bags. He
looks me in the eye without fail,
his mind waging perpetual war
with his tongue. He mumbles, crowding
with the rockslides that force him back
to silent shelter in his cave.
I’ve been working up the courage
to touch the boulders of his language.
I want to remind him of something
he may have forgotten sleeping
on cement, using the discarded breath
of others to stay alive. How it feels
to be young, in a feather bed at night
with a woman’s hair
spread yellow across your pillow
like the certainty of another sunrise.
I want to walk up to him like a son
and thank him for everything
and for this desire to speak,
for being patient enough to wait
until I was ready to talk
to the ghost of my weakness. Today,
the doorway was empty. I stood there,
long enough to shrink
for not saying what needed to be said
when I should have. Long enough
to feel him, pressed flat between
the sidewalk and a stranger’s heel.

 

[BooMerengue]

He did brave deeds once, they say,
they kind that do not die.
Stormed shores, ate bullets
for breakfast. Look at his face,
got the scars and crazies to prove it.
That’s all distant now. Everything
is distant. He sits in a deep doorway
on Delancey, nursing crushed Marlboros
round. I wonder if he finds soul mates
way down there in his hands,
those butts ground down to stubs,
or just longs to fill his lungs
with a variant of survival, like everyone.
I’ve passed him in the morning forever,
every evening headed back
to my safe version of his bags. He
looks me in the eye without fail,
his mind waging perpetual war
with his tongue. He mumbles, crowding
with the rockslides that force him back
to silent shelter in his cave.
I’ve been working up the courage
to touch the boulders of his language.
I want to remind him of something
he may have forgotten sleeping
on cement, using the discarded breath
of others to stay alive. How it feels
to be young, in a feather bed at night
with a woman’s hair
spread yellow across your pillow
like the certainty of another sunrise.
I want to walk up to him like a son
and thank him for everything
and for this desire to speak,
for being patient enough to wait
until I was ready to talk
to the ghost of my weakness. Today,
the doorway was empty. I stood there,
long enough to shrink
for not saying what needed to be said
when I should have. Long enough
to feel him, pressed flat between
the sidewalk and a stranger’s heel.

Bravo! For what it's worth I think this is astounding! Thank you.

I have been silent for so long it's hard to remember to speak sometimes; I had to this time.

Boo

 

[Rybka]

Seconded!

Bravo! For what it's worth I think this is astounding! Thank you.

I have been silent for so long it's hard to remember to speak sometimes; I had to this time.

Boo

I agree! And it deserves a far better home than these humble boards. - Well done and very powerful!

 

[TheRainMan]

I agree! And it deserves a far better home than these humble boards. - Well done and very powerful!

Boo and Rybka, thank you.

You are both too kind.

 

[TheRainMan]

Removed. Needs more work.

 

[BooMerengue]

oooops...

 

[MsPortia]

Her face reflected the light
around her but inside
she was empty, a set
of lines living alone
in a flurry of others
all headed down
in a silence that begged
for a scream. She is his

snowflake, dancing a ballet
staged against the grey,
a delicacy that invites
more than dissuades
his need to hold her,
even if it hastens her demise.
Just once is all I need

and once was all he had,
before she melted
into a tear that slid
between his fingers
and hit the ground.

 

[TheRainMan]

The streets turn blue in the meat locker
of March. A man moves, one
small squirm on the sidewalk. Stiffening
in preserve, not yet rotted. The coming
mouth of spring will judge his prime.
I see his grief and solitude
as he looks up a last time, St. Sebastian
frozen in his stare. It makes me think
he might be holy. I’m warm and tucked
behind a window, of course.
Like any form of worship, mine feeds
on my own safety. We Christians
prefer our Gods imperfect and distant,
touching the human side of providence
but not us. We like them on the hook,
spread. And I find a certain comfort
that his woolen crown is tight
and crooked on his head. I look
for seepage as I hold my hot cup,
imagine a time when I’m weak
and trembling and thorned,
and place the liquid to his lips.
Even as I stain the glass with yellow
breaths of cowardice, that lie
sounds more like truth than anything
I know. His eyes find me
with the secret of his suffering. It’s not
the ice sharp as iron pegs, not cement
that is his hanging wood.
It’s a town he dangles from, a woman
he loved that has forgotten him.
And I realize he’s dying
in the church where he was married.
Winter is his priest. I watch in silence
as we do, as another king
passes like a peasant. Nailed
to the cold arms of his big queen city.

 

[champagne1982]

those eyes peek
through the embered
twilight
heat exhausting
out of the flames
banked for the night
sleep soft with me and close
those windows
for only a short time
until the fire kindles
up from slumber
and the daylight
invites you to share
some time with me
in passing morning
warm in bed

 

[Tzara]

.....

 

[eagleyez]

Icewipers chanked with cocktail cubes,
Me headed for meteor oil
Widnswept gray center lines,

Plumes of cryogenics
Lavender fingers as marquees-
Oven burnscar heals slow,

Pharmacies and Barber poles
Barely audible/visual
All smokeringed and postofficed
Delivering close shaves and
Sleeping giants.

Dark by four
2 x 2 in a headlamp dream
Eeking miniscule length to afternoons
Still birth mornings-

They come with a whispering thaw
Her hairblanket tickles my underear to hear.

 

[Man Ray]

not sure how many words,
how many words to describe you,
ten, twenty, hundreds, a thousand?
or should I be strict and concise,
edit the encyclopaedia of you,
down to one perfect word



beautiful​

 

[TheRainMan]

A Heraldry of Hands

I’ve always been taken by women’s hands,
each with their own way of being
in history. But I’m untouched
by the ones satiny with birthrights
and a pinky raised for tea. I’m
never sure what to make of hands
like those, the purchased purity
as spotless as new linens,
lifelines like the seam
of untroubled glass. They are

so unlike hands of earned identity
that are more soul than skin,
that bear damage,
the blemishes and bends that say
earth is not a place of justice,
that wear a simple ring so well
union really does seem sacred. As a boy

I was fascinated by my grandmother’s,
how her hands were a human story
written at Hardscrabble Creek
in knobs and nicks, in slants
that spoke celery snaps of bones,
cottonfields and crazy days. I listened,

and they told me hands were made
before spades, and I could hear
the wail of slaves
as they dug with crooked fingers,
the sobs of mourners
muffled in palms as dirt was turned.

And too, I heard better times. Crackles
of ice they held in enough highballs
for her to miss a few trains and steps,
the secrets in the silky rub
of rented rooms. They said years

are pushed down hard by rain,
and in the mud I could tell
without looking at her face
how beautiful she must have been
in a storm. Her hands were clean

because she had wept on them so often,
and marked fields and flesh
with their chaste blood. I stared
until I wanted to grow up clutching
such beauty and scars to me,
closer than any love or tattoo.



***********

all is well, Boo.

 

[BooMerengue]

I’ve always been taken by women’s hands,
each with their own way of being
in history. But I’m untouched
by the ones satiny with birthrights
and a pinky raised for tea. I’m
never sure what to make of hands
like those, the purchased purity
as spotless as new linens,
lifelines like the seam
of untroubled glass. They are

so unlike hands of earned identity
that are more soul than skin,
that bear damage,
the blemishes and bends that say
earth is not a place of justice,
that wear a simple ring so well
union really does seem sacred. As a boy

I was fascinated by my grandmother’s,
how her hands were a human story
written at Hardscrabble Creek
in knobs and nicks, in slants
that spoke celery snaps of bones,
cottonfields and crazy days. I listened,

and they told me hands were made
before spades, and I could hear
the wail of slaves
as they dug with crooked fingers,
the sobs of mourners
muffled in palms as dirt was turned.

And too, I heard better times. Crackles
of ice they held in enough highballs
for her to miss a few trains and steps,
the secrets in the silky rub
of rented rooms. They said years

are pushed down hard by rain,
and in the mud I could tell
without looking at her face
how beautiful she must have been
in a storm. Her hands were clean

because she had wept on them so often,
and marked fields and flesh
with their chaste blood. I stared
until I wanted to grow up clutching
such beauty and scars to me,
closer than any love or tattoo.



***********

all is well, Boo.

lol It's beautifuler.

[SIZE=-2]You would love my hands.[/SIZE]

 

[Guest]

Hands in my pocket
for attitude
hips
aslant

Hands in my pockets
for warmth
deep
clenched

hands in my pockets
for keys
money
searching

Hands in my pockets
for safety's sake
in case I
slap
your
damn
face?​

 

[eagleyez]

Back o my hands
Clasped and doubled
Enough blood to reach around
The easy breath of orions belt

Prayer machinations
The Sunday's and
The craw of belts drawn tight
Metabolized whilst famine and
Degradation sweep drive in's
Past freeways
Along hilltops
Brushfires alight

Gingerbread houses
Cardboard mudslides
Rain and swollen hearts
The squaw wood lights anew
55 gallon drums huddle
In dooryards and porchlight

Illuminationan diverse light
Generations whisper
Oral tradition
Wordlover.

 

[annaswirls]

Advice to the Sleeping Poetess

Do not stumble
from tight stretched sheets
and try to record
dreams and nightmares
in iambic pentameter
or other poetic trickery.

Charm cannot translate
the spun sugar of dreams.
It pours like crystals
into a metal sink.

 

[FilthyCute]

Bravo! For what it's worth I think this is astounding! Thank you.

I have been silent for so long it's hard to remember to speak sometimes; I had to this time.

Boo

Ditto

Just stunning, moved me to tears, and, for the first time in six years made me want to try to write again. I don't know what else to say.

 

[eagleyez]

Ditto

Just stunning, moved me to tears, and, for the first time in six years made me want to try to write again. I don't know what else to say.

The Rain Man has that effect on people. Welcome to this wideopen thread. Write, write-then write some more.



Sincerely, the 20/20 birdbrain.

(hiya Boo, sweetheart)