not sure how many words

[eagleyez]

Pound the pavement
Peruse the document
Count railroad ties
and remember running away from home-

Summer of 69
Transferred back to SF
Fresh off that thumb over nipple-
Surfer Girls and Doors concerts
She was babysitting,
We had a secret knock
My knees quaked as she said sit here, no here, silly.

"there" I shuddered.
"yes, right here."

and under the giant twisted spruce tree
our talks turned to lips
brushing ever so gently,
my hands roamed
she with catholic school white shirt buttoned halfway up

" I need water,"
she pouted, a year older and light years ahead.

"here, drink mine."

I coulda killed the old man
Career my ass.

Took off 500 miles on that old ten speed
Southward,
Made it two and slept in the pine straw.
Halfway to Oaktown
Come to think of it
The Panthers on the other side
Would have made pastry outa me,
Honky rolls at dawn.

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - running away from home

Five years and carrying a case
red with a black handle

strawberries and sandwich
ready for walking

for running
away from home.

Being watched from the window
as the walk was barefoot

on rough metal roads
where cars skid easy-

cruisy and drivers
were blind to a bundle walking.

Laughed and watched
when brow creased

in confusion at the crossroads.
Which way to grandmas?

 

[Angeline]

I couldn't run
to Grandma's, she was only
one flight down, but her flat
was the same sad death star
full of sighs and memories.

No solace there from the woman
who once guided my hand
on a rolling pin, sang Somewhere
Over the Rainbow while she taught
me to stretch dough paper-thin.

That was the before grandma,
not this after one who screamed
and banged her head on the coffin,
tried to throw herself in the grave
because she thought it should have
been her.

Everyone hugged me. God
I hated that over and over.
My back would stiffen
hearing them approach
because I was so tired
of acting like I felt something,

(toosh'b'chatah v'nechematah, da'ameeran b'al'mah.
v'eemru: Amein.)

so I sat on the fire escape,
smoked stolen Tarytons,
sat on the stone wall
that fronted the apartments.
It curved graceful as a smile,
but it was false as a movie set:
no home behind the brick facade.

I watched cars glide
down the avenue as if
they had purpose, unaware
they were about to be halted
at the traffic circle, no stop
light just brake to inches, slow
from intent or occasionally crash
to stillness.

On South Broad Street others
navigate the messy inconvenience
and accelerate away.

 

[eagleyez]

Oh Sister...

Oh, sister, when I come to lie in your arms
You should not treat me like a stranger.
Our Father would not like the way that you act
And you must realize the danger.

Oh, sister, am I not a brother to you
And one deserving of affection?
And is our purpose not the same on this earth,
To love and follow his direction?

We grew up together
From the cradle to the grave
We died and were reborn
And then mysteriously saved.

Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door,
Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow.
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow

 

[TheRainMan]

.....

 

[Angeline]

In the dream of rain
you sat in a blue recliner
I've never seen before.
The TV squawked news
like always, but our living
room, the whole house in fact,
looked like a Tuscan terrace,
open-framed, wound in green
vines bearing purple grapes,
not unpleasant

excepting the downpour
which couldn't have been
real because it fell clear
but landed in vermillion
splotches, puddled
over terracotta tiles
that don't exist
in our open-air bathroom
that doesn't either.

I didn't mind rushing
from room to room,
picking up the laundry
you had thoughtfully
hung on wooden stands
we don't have. I thought
mygod he's washing
my panties again and here
we just went to the laundomat.
Now look: everything
is getting soaked!

I peered through storm
dense as a mesh screen,
saw you turn your head
to smile at me, that same
sweet love smile you gift
me 1,000 times a day,
but it was raining blue
on your face, your glasses.

It was raining on the news
and they just kept talking.

The mattress creaked
and I opened one dry eye.
You pulled me into your arms,
buried your face in my neck
and it wasn't raining
anymore.

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - rain/hail...

It hails here you know.
When it's heavy hail
the ice bounces as it hits
the ground. I swear
it leaves dents in the quiella
deck a wood that needs
screw holes to be nailed
to the foundation, a wood
that is as solid as the tumbled
bricks on the walls.
This place wont burn,
nor will hail
damage tarnish the exterior,
much. It's too perfect
this place.
Pity it's not in the middle
of the bush.

 

[DeepAsleep]

The only time I ever hung laundry
on a clothesline

I had an idea that came from
some movie, but I thought it'd
be neat,
or funny,
or you know, something

so I hung white sheets
on green wires
with stolen clothespins.
I chased you through laundry
cornered you between
vertical sheets
(I love a change of scenery)

That is how I remember you
laughing between the sheets
sun through your hair
i remember sleeping with you
in the grass and bugbites
and laughter and yeah,
I remember the wine
and the bed
but I preferred the sheets
on the line

 

[Guest]

Human Biscotti

don't dunk donuts
they go soggy and disintegrate
You find bits in the bottom
of your coffee mug
soft bits of sweet flesh
in the last swig.
But biscotti is designed
for leisurely dunking
on sunny courtyards
to sparrow's song and
gossip in a foreign tongue.
Bring on Spring so we
can dunk ourselves in mugs
of sunshine.

 

[eagleyez]

I semi stangled myself
Green forest shirt
With grey tie

showered shaved
Shivered
as I left the library
parking lot-

sure I would get a ticket
Stephen and Tabitha
were watching out for me,

They give millions to re-constitute old texts
Like me-
I bow down to my luck
read like a book
parked like a jalopy.

 

[eagleyez]

Los Alamitos

The confectioneer
Mary was her name
Cholo stacked with 12 brothers
Taco vendors and gringo hagglers
Mariachi cornet hit triple high C

Scrawled her name on the Taco Bell
Benches,
Feighned rosaries
Spilt the holy wine
And heard confession

"stole a bike"

"bought a pack of smokes"

spoke sermons wanting to mount
Mary and she had a brother Ronny.
Took a broken bottle in the chest
Ribcage for to stop a bullet
As we watched him spill out
In the Barrio and Ambulances
And firetrucks ambled up and lit
Marlboro's

Spic motherfucker
and the wind cried
Mary.

 

[wildsweetone]

I semi stangled myself
Green forest shirt
With grey tie

showered shaved
Shivered
as I left the library
parking lot-

sure I would get a ticket
Stephen and Tabitha
were watching out for me,

They give millions to re-constitute old texts
Like me-
I bow down to my luck
read like a book
parked like a jalopy.

strangled yourself!!! oh good grief!!! are you really sure you want to wear a tie every day????

you are?

okay. hmm positive thoughts *thinking*... you'll get better at tying it, i just know it.

 

[Angeline]

Pull myself
from the blue tide of sleep
every morning dream
music, inner soundtrack
surges and fades.

It's never any song
I recognize just an amalgam
of consciousness and memory
jumbled in a quilt of respite.

I turn from the Terry cave
sprawled around me.
Furnace boy breathes warmth.

I could stay nuzzled to chest hair
and lovebeat, welcome prison
of arms. He'll struggle to his own
shore of waking soon and I don't
need to be anywhere

for hours but the smile
when I bring him coffee,
the first cup before dawn
stretches over the pines
is my morning prayer I would

do anything
anything
for that smile.

 

[eagleyez]

Cut my thumb
Drew no blood
Screwdrivers and Allen wrenches
Trunk full of tools-

Plastic drop clothes
caught it all
electrified
Hot Wired
Mud tires mired

Televised
Speed skaters
Across living rooms
Hot water ice climber
River moves
Around downed trees

Slipped in the mud house
Cut my anger in half
Gurnsey time
to give birth to a calf

Majesty
running into town
the hour time
Horseblankets
Thisles
Barns burned down
Mojo
shaking like the planks
dry like summer
cedar shakes
Cypress too wet
spreading a-fire
only in my dreams.

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - stretch

Sun fingers reach
to freely fondle
the macrocarpa needles.
Needles that crave
the kiss of dawn,
branches that crave
to dominate the horizon
and roots that crave
nourishment
from the summer-
seared soil.
Nourishment that ensures
a marqueed canopy.
Shadowed below -
a meadow, a home
where the mid-summer breeze -
a gasping whisper -
nuzzles the nocturnal
from their peace sleep,
nudges the hedgehogs
to snuffle and snort
and kneads the land
a rolling roil
a skeleton
cracked and craving
replenishment.

 

[Angeline]

51 degrees
snowmelt reduced to grimy slush
February 16th and it shouldn't be
so warm, more a hairline crack
in Maine's glacial winter edifice than invitation
to the mudswamps of May

but we'll take it, gladly turn pale faces
to the sun, shimmy to my little blue Hyundai
and giggle for the joy of layers shed.

I watch you from behind the bank's plate glass,
follow you into the post office, the grocery store.
I read the easy set of your back,
your loose-limbed walk. My boy doesn't hurt
today, I know, and I'm just tall enough
to lean forward and kiss the curve
between your shoulderblades a little
to the right where it doesn't ache

today is like any day that rises and sets
in your eyes, begins and ends with your voice,
my world, I tell you, my life
measured against your stride feels like spring.

Snow tomorrow and we'll be
sliding through our errands then back
here watching winter overtake the deck
and bend the pines again.

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - shimmy

It overhangs the concrete
path, the shimmer weed
that grows during summer
in a ground cracked
under a sky that's blue
from horizon to horizon.
A soft breeze
sets the grass to shake
a flurry of seeds
scatter to fall not far
from the edge of the path.
They root and grow to brush
against legs that pound
past, collecting in globs
where paspalum has stuck
only to be struck further afield
on some other mid-summer
morning.

 

[sugarmountain]

Release the memory
it lies along the creases
in the sheets upon your bed
shows in the furrows
spread across your forehead

once smooth and soft you
found yourself lost among
long sensuous limbs entangling
your torso, embroiled in ecstasy
heart thumping, bells clanging

the alarm of needs urgent
to express, the desire of someone
who understands your cellular composition
can bend your body along with your will
knows all your predispositions

wires hooked to terminals
poised plunger raised to detonate
her groundwork is flawless
she knows all your quirks
one quick push sets off fireworks

now Fourth of July is over
It was just a holiday, a break
it seems in the drudgery of things
for her, she’s back to work
while you lay on worn out springs

 

[tungtied2u]

Was that our song I heard
on the radio, I don't know
but it caught my attention

not to mention that scent
in the store, what's it called,
I know it from somewhere,

at night, deep in purple
in bed, colors run
through my head

on which I'd rather not dwell,
the sounds, smells and sights
bring memories to much to bear

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - deep purple

Deep purple,
the colour of the iris
as it stands swelling
in morning.
Plump, ripe
and waiting
for the kiss of mists
that surely will land
upon a delicate petal
and drizzle down deep
to its core.




oh good grief where on earth did that come from???

 

[tungtied2u]

back at 'cha

wounds weep, swell then heal
for now I prefer to pick the scab
watch the blood run
refresh the memory
of the initial sting
eventually, I will leave it
alone long enough
only a scar will mark the surface
of what still rests deep beneath

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - wounds

Blood, the money of life
that trickles
from our bodies
from wounds. Blood that seeps
from wounds and pours
from the cradle
within that nurses life.
Blood that pours from the soul
of us, as a weeping wound
devoured by a sad hatred
and a loss so grand
that all we see is a bitter
beauty through the pain.


(sorry needs lots of work)

 

[tungtied2u]

Waters waits, lies placid
waitng to be moved
by circumstance

Water welcomes you
into its folds, you float
surrounded by softness

Water has no ambition
is content to sink
to the lowest point

Water can annoint you
cleanse your soul
salve your anxiety

But do not think
water can be controlled
it will overwhelm you
drag you down

Water is life
Water is death
We are water

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - water


A ground swelling
whirlpool created
in wind and swept
beyond the borders
of imagination, dragged
under to circle
the pinprick of existence
founded in water
nailed deep
to the sea bed,
a watery existence
weighted with the solid
foundation of granite
and ingrained in the mind
like the scars on skin
from a whip.

*shudder*

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - mask


Autumn days are comin'
lazy days
crazy days
hazy days for lovin'
long-legged lymphatic
soaking the sun
that drug of the active
taken open-mouthed
intravenously
or as a direct
adrenaline
to the heart
unnoticed except
for the glow
of the eyes
behind
the mask.